Saturday, October 12, 2013

No, I do not want to sit on that chair

Went to buy my copy of Y today, and I just got started on the game. First things first: the graphics are gorgeous. I only did the one battle against Shauna, but it leaves me dying to experience battles with better moves than Vine Whip. That's gotta be an incredible sight!

Never thought I'd say this about a main series Pokémon game, but the controls need to get used to. It's nothing major, but after being stuck on a grid for 17 years, this is a total culture shock. There's also the annoying part where my character will sit down on any piece of furniture, even if I don't ask him to. The plaza with all these chairs in Aquacorde Town... well, that was a bit annoying to get around and talk to everyone. I don't know if it does something, but my money's on no (at least in Skyward Sword it wasn't automated, and it healed you to boot).

Also, what the hell is the point of this empty-ass route 1? I know it's because you get your starter in the second town, but then why make them two smaller, separate towns instead of one big one? This makes no sense! But I guess I'm nitpicking now, so I better just move on.

I was disappointed to find out there's no Pokémon Center until Santalune City, which means I won't be able to cash in on my Torchic until I reach that point. Not that it's much of a problem, because after it levels up once it's going to start disobeying me until I get the first badge. That is, unless they changed the level at which Pokémon stop listening to you if you don't have any badges. According to Serebii, even the first badge allows Pokémon up to level 40 to listen to you, so they might have changed that as well. Did anyone use their Torchic at level 11 and beyond before beating Viola? I'd like to know.

Finally, for those curious, it took me two attempts to get a good-natured Chespin (yes, I went through that even though it's only a temporary team member). First one was Rash, which is pretty close to worst-case scenario, and the next try was Jolly, a definite keeper.

If I have anything more to say later, I'll edit this after the jump.

Current team: L6 Chespin (temporary)

Edit: Just went through route 2 and Santalune Forest... the variety in Pokémon, especially so early on, is overwhelming. I've never seen anything like this. Although all the Pokémon there are absolutely terrible. It does feel weird to have the elemental monkeys as non-rare encounters, though. Oh, about Santalune Forest... could they have been any less creative? "Hey, let's just make Viridian Forest IN THREEEEEE DEEEEEEEE and call it a day. The genwunners will love this!" BO-RING.

Rushed through route 3, skipping everything so I could get to the Pokémon Center. Since it's a gift, I can afford to be especially picky about its nature, so I'll be resetting a bunch of times.

Current team: L11 Chespin (temporary)

Edit 2: After a few tries, I nailed an Impish Torchic. I can also confirm two things: Pokémon of a higher level will obey you even when you don't have any badges, and the opponent's level doesn't affect the experience you get anymore. Combined with the lack of Audino grinding, this makes grinding low-level Pokémon much more difficult - hence why the revamped Exp. Share. A few Pokémon's cries have been updated, Zigzagoon and Bidoof were particularly noticeable. I'm going to check out Santalune City further, hunt for some Pokémon I'm missing, then take on the gym.

Oh, and Torchic's anus is perfectly visible. OH GOD WHY.

Current team: L13 Torchic, L11 Chespin (temporary)

Edit 3: Torchic evolved while checking out route 22, and THEN I went back to catch some Pokémon I missed. I had especially bad luck with Burmy since it only knows Protect, and as a result it stalls me out while I try to weaken it, then all my balls fail to catch it and it Struggles itself to death. Worse, I want to catch FOUR of them, three for all the Wormadam forms and one for Mothim. I currently have zero. I'm also having rotten luck looking for a Pansear. I did find and catch a Pikachu, though. I had to cut the chase short, though, because clearly Combusken was going to stop obeying when it hit level 21, and I was getting dangerously close to that thanks to the 50% boost on traded Pokémon, so I decided to burn the gym down before that happened.

Two things I'm thankful for: the GTS now features an option to filter your search based on Pokémon you own only (ABOUT FUCKING TIME), and the Exp. Share doesn't show each inactive team member individually like it did in gen 1.

Current team: L20 Combusken (sound familiar?)

Edit 4: I decided to rush through route 4 without fighting anyone so I could get to Lumiose City and get my Bulbasaur a bit earlier. I got a Sassy nature on the second try... eh, good enough, considering you have to fight Sycamore every time you want to reroll.

I then realized I had access to Pokémon-Amie and Super Training right from the word go. Super Training feels... well, awkward, to say the least. I'm not exactly sure I know what I'm doing, even though I blazed through the tutorials. I don't understand why there are two layers on the graph that displays your EVs, either.

As for Pokémon-Amie... well, it's just as shitty as you'd imagine. And since you can reap sizable benefits for maxing out your Pokémon's affection, I'm pretty much forced to do it. Right now Bulbasaur has four hearts out of five, and Combusken three. I had a hard time figuring it out at first, but as it turns out, you can see what's on your Pokémon's mind when you tap it on the touch screen. There are three icons that come out, and how regularly they come out reflects what your Pokémon wants. Sweets are for being fed, hearts are for being petted, and musical notes are for playing mini-games. Of which there are only three of. Sound familiar? It should. When your Pokémon doesn't want to be fed anymore, it'll eat much slower (and its fullness is displayed on its Pokémon-Amie stat screen as well), when it doesn't want to be petted there'll just be a musical note instead of hearts, and, well, turns out there's never a bad time to play mini-games, since this is what gives you sweets in the first place. At least this is how I see it, and I must be doing something right since their affection is actually going up.

Edit 5: I managed to max out both my Combusken's and my Bulbasaur's affection. It took a while, but the benefits are amazing. Crits and dodging all over the place. However, it has the unfortunate effect of making certain Pokémon harder to catch. I accidentally killed a Dunsparce I was trying to catch with one such critical.

Anyway, as far as progress goes, I caught a few more Pokémon in previous areas (still missing my four Burmys and a Dunsparce though), then moved on to route 4 where my Bulbasaur evolved. And thus ends day one!

Current team: L22 Combusken, L16 Ivysaur

23 comments:

  1. So why is your temporary starter Chespin?

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    1. No particular reason. I just like it, that's all.

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    2. I'd probably use Fennekin because it can beat the first gym before I ditch it and I want Serena to have Froakie for everyone's favorite starter to chew on.

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    3. Meh, I think Rollout is probably going to work out well.

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  2. Hey Slow

    Slow

    I just reached the ice puzzle level. The ice puzzle level with DIAGONAL MOVEMENT :|

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  3. i have on my team lvl 43 absol lvl 43 lucario lv 45 greninja lvl 43 charizard gor pokemon x

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  4. I got a jolly torchic first try. At first I thought that the torchic had a fixed nature because my luck is never that good. I guess you can't be unlucky all the time. :)

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  5. Pikachu is saying "Pika!" It's pokemon yellow again! Nooooooo this is horrifying!!

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  6. Yeah. Just wait until you have to find a Trace Ralts again...

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  7. By the time you reach the 2nd gym, You would probably be close to having a Blaziken....

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  8. Found something interesting. Get into a hoard battle in Route 8 with Zangoose and there is one seviper in there. All the Zangoose are pretty much ignoring me for the seviper (and vice versa). A good touch, too bad it's making catching this seviper horrid......

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  9. The double layered graph is this, Yellow is total EVs, Green is the EVs gained so far through leveling.

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  10. Are you playing the game in English or in French? (Just asking because if there were any Pokémon game to be played in French, it would be this one.)

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  11. I still can't get over the fact that Sycamore's first name in the English translation is "Augustine". It's totally a girl's name. It should have been "Augustin".

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    1. Or Augustus. Hey, they named the guy in charge of the PC Cassius...

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  12. Are the starters that bad this gen?

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  13. If you're having issue catching things, I think an Aide in Sycamore's lab gives you a False Swipe TM

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  14. Naughty for me. Not the worst. Got a Brave Snorlax with Thick Fat on my first try, though...

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  15. Two things I would like to say. First you asked if anybody used Torchic level 11 and beyond and yeah I used mine to level 100 and second the first Pokemon I noticed to have a different cry was Psyduck. I was like "holy crap what the heck was that noise it just made?" o.O

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