26 05 2022

Misc: I started this one the day the 2nd Scarlet Violet trailer went up. I think it moved up the importance of playing Legends Arceus. Certainly looks better than previous Switch games early trailers. I’m hoping the move to open world works… I didn’t find SwSh as charming as previous entries, I would love an open world more urban game. Or a good mix. A part of me believes that you can get BoTW without being… grassy fields. Grassy fields can help some of that but we’re nearing grassy fields being one of those things people point to like Bloom in the mid aughts, QTEs in the post-Shenmue world, and active reload after Gears of War. Once again I feel nothing about the legendaries and looking at the games for clothing colors. Though, worth saying I don’t think I dislike them. Maybe even like them slightly more than Swsh’s. 

HGSS: Ecruteak gym went quick with the team I have. Togetic isn’t going to stick around much longer, but mine pulled through. Was a little tougher than expected, I think I had an easier time on one of my earlier runs where I just ran in with an underleveled Gastly and made up for it with a starter or something. At this point with pokemon shuffling I actually didn’t have a Pokemon with surf, so I ran right to the spot to get Miltank and got to Olivine. The Moomoo Farm has a little mill thing now. After watching a bunch of transit videos, the farm near town makes so much more sense. Honestly makes me want detailed open world pokemon a little, walking past forest, farm, and rivers to other towns would be fun. 

    In Olivine, the town basically looks the same. The biggest detail changes are the little flags, the improved pier, and the lighthouse that looks like an actual lighthouse. Inside the lighthouse top floor, though, there’s been a trade-off. Cozy room for the Ampharos (and Jasmine or another trainer?) is gone. It’s now clearly a place for the Ampharos to actually produce the light. Which it currently isn’t because it’s sick. Quest is mostly the same.

    At this point I was staring at my team. I was using Miltank for Surf. I did not have ground nor water since dropping Wooper. And, at this point I’m roughly at the same levels as my old Soul Silver save. A Soul Silver save that has a bunch of stuff from my other GenIV games. Also, I knew I was going to need a fire type. I decided to give myself more choices. Grabbed some eggs and some trades from the other game. This is taking longer than planned, I figured I’d be done with GenIV by now when I started this. I was planning on avoiding trading and breeding to get a feel for how the games are without that, but just replaying it is enough. It’s also getting pretty obvious that most pokemon have better learnsets, better moves, better stats, and for the most part exp is better. I’ve been able to do the waltz into a gym and actually train up on the trainers before the leader. Part of it could just be speed, too. 

    From other games I settled on bringing over an Espeon, a Cyndaquil/Quilava, and an extra Milotic from when I really wanted a good one and hatched. Cyndaquil/Typhlosion was my original Gold Starter and I was starting to miss it. Afterall, this is a bit of a re-run. While training them up, I went to Cianwood and beat the Gym with Crobat and Flaffy. Also, did the Eusine battle. “I hate to admit it I lost.” He lost because he used Curse as the last move. Oops. Glad HGSS got the Suicune encounters from Crystal. 

Back at Olivine, I deliver the medicine and head to the Gym. No gym trainers, as both thanks for healing the Ampharos and the two that are there already saw me battle in the lighthouse. Jasmine has a cute dialogue intro about how strong steel types are and it just works better here. I think it’s a combo of the extra portrait sprite work, her outfit, and the nicer gym just feeling like an actual place. My plan to deal with the gym using off type moves on Miltank didn’t work so I had Quilava do it. I now have 8 Pokemon to juggle around the team, no idea where things are going now. Now that the games are synced up, I’m going to go into the mountain on one of them and not the other. Mostly playing side by side for now just to do the major version differences stuff. I remember Heart Gold having a lot of specific plot and always been wondering what Silver does. I’m pretty sure I got Silver’s Lugia in the original GBC game. I just don’t remember anything. Looking forward to things, but definitely going to do more to speed things up. I have GenIV pokemon laying around that I could use. My priorities are story, look, and feel. Getting pokemon would be pretty easy. I did enough events in older games that I got older legends I want. Oh right, this version has a Safari Zone at this point so I should check it out.