The Gaming Den

So... yeah, I agree that we should really just have a pokemon thread. Plus, this:

I haven't played Pokemon since 1st Gen. I did love my team of Charizard, Cloyster, Jolteon, Alakazam, Eggsecutor, and Golem though. That Golem and Alakazam required me polling other high school students willing to make a trade to evolve my Pokemon. I'm surprised at how many people were in the same boat.

But anyway, what would be a good Pokemon game for someone who hasn't played in about a decade but liked the Red/Blue ones?

Most teams that were good in first gen are probably still going to be pretty decent. I don't pay much attention to the competitive scene (though now that I'm working at Toys R Us, which apparently holds pokemon tournaments, I might start), I just make sure I can cover most, if not all, types of opponent.

Ironically, Cloyster became like the #1 sweeper in BW thanks to a ridiculous move that's unique to it (and Smeargle).

Ah, yes, I'd forgotten Smeargle's near impossible-to-use move that let's it permanently copy any other move. The key to using it, iirc, is really good timing. Also, Smeargle looks like Pablo Picasso.

Charizard (Bellyzard is still popular if you're okay with breeding), Alakazam, Jolteon and Cloyster are all good still. And yes, if you learn Shell Smash or Smash Shell (I forget which) before evolving, it is seriously a sweeper. Enemy teams will all get fucked by a giant vagina.

Koumei wrote: Enemy teams will all get fucked by a giant vagina.

You sure know how to convince an oldtimer, Koumei.

I'm kind of sad that Golem and Eggsecutor aren't apparently in the game anymore. I thought that they looked badass.

Oh, well, what are some good Rock/Earth/Whatever the fuck and Plant-type Pokeymans? I guess I could also replace Jolteon and Charizard, too. I honestly want to make room for Blastoise because he looks so damn sweet, but with him and Cloyster that might just be a little too much water.

Lago PARANOIA wrote: I'm kind of sad that Golem and Eggsecutor aren't apparently in the game anymore. I thought that they looked badass.

Eggsecutor has a x4 Bug weakness, and ultimately there are more powerful Plant types, and more powerful Psychic types. It won't exactly suck, but now that Twin Needle isn't like the only damaging Bug move, the first time something rocks up with Bug Buzz, Bug Bite or X-Scissor, it's a OHKO.

Note: plenty of non-bugs use X-Scissor.

Golem suffers from Rock/Ground being an awful combo. It takes x4 from Water and Plant, and is weak against Ground, Steel, Ice, Fighting and your mum.

Water is extremely common to face. Heaps of Pokemon also bring Ground and Fighting moves, and Ice often shows up too (mainly to deal with the possibility of Flying/Dragon types). Steel can fuck off, it's more of a Pokemon type than a move type - largely there for the defences. There are a couple of Steel moves - and Technician Scizor will make you cry with its Bullet Punch - but seriously, that's the least of your troubles.

Oh, well, what are some good Rock/Earth/Whatever the fuck and Plant-type Pokeymans?

Rock or Ground is what you want. Common favourites include Aggron, Exadrill and Tyranitar. I'm sure there are others. Note that Aggron is a semi-wall that can be a decent sweeper if it sets up, and the other two are death machines.

I like Liligant for a Grass type, but that's because it's really cute. Not bad as a dancer-sweeper, I guess. You could also do well with Shiftry (Dark/Grass - very fast, all assassiny) or Leafeon (the plant Eevee-lution). You could also do Sunflora as a pain-in-the-arse defensive type (Grass Whistle to make them fall asleep, then Leech Seed and Ingrain - you now have two sources of healing going at the same time, and they're taking damage each turn and can't force you to switch with a Whirlwind. Add Giga Drain for good measure) or maybe be a nuisance with Whimsicott (with the Prankster ability - all status moves go first like Quick Attack) or Ferrothorn (Steel/Grass. Yes, that's a x4 Fire weakness, but you deal recoil damage to people who attack you with physical moves. Wield a rocky helmet for even more recoil).

I guess I could also replace Jolteon and Charizard, too. I honestly want to make room for Blastoise because he looks so damn sweet, but with him and Cloyster that might just be a little too much water.

You could get those two to cover different bases, honestly. Or you could just use Cloyster, w/e. Jolteon is still pretty solid offensively (and fast enough to make it work), but remember Electabuzz? It has an even stronger evolution, Electivire, now. If you wanted to replace Charizard, other Fire types worth noting include Combusken (Fire/Fighting, hits hard and fast), Emboar (Fire/Fighting, hits hard and takes hits), Volcarona (one Quiver Dance, then just unleash special attacks all day) and Chandelure (hey, Ghost/Fire! Will-O-Wisp -> Hex, anyone?)

So it turns out there are actually wild Eevee in Castelia City. I'm not even talking post-game. Enter the sewers either during Autumn or when you have Surf, and go down the stairs, to the left, then up the stairs. The next stairway leads you out of the sewers into the park, with one tree, one guy, and some grass sort of in a pokeball pattern.

You can find Skitty, Pidove, Ratatta, Cottonee/Petillil, and Eevee. Before you get too excited, Eevee has a 5% chance. So if you want to catch 7 so you can make one of each, you'll be there a while.

Also, you can't visit the Entralink from there, so no easy "hop in, activate any mission whatsoever, hop out, activate the shaky-grass++ power" tricks. I have yet to see *any* shaking grass there, but if you do, you can get evolved forms of the above (not including Eevee). Which saves you some stone-based evolution of your own, I guess.

Oh, right, I forgot that Unova has like 16 seasons a year.

I only obsessively combed the sewers in Summer, and before I had gotten Surf.

Either Unova's seasons make no fucking sense, or this is set to the US and also misread the system calendar. Because Autumn apparently started this month. You know, two months after Autumn starts in the US, or two months after Spring starts over here. Given SS got it right, I'm not sure what's going on.

But I can live with it making no sense. Also, I really need to make Frillish my Surfer. Azumarril is cute and all, but not actually a great combatant. Frillish on the other hand would cover Ghost (taking out Ghosts and Psychics, being immune to Normal and Fightan moves) and Water, and be an awesome wall in general. With Water Absorb, we're talking three immunities here. So what, Surf, Shadow Ball, Rain Dance and Scald?

Also: caves piss me off. Always have, always will. That goes quadruple for ones that require Flash. So whenever cave walking... take a break and go chill out in Lostlorn Forest. I really like that place. Many instances of shaking grass, so many types to catch, perfect spot for farming Lilligant/Whimsicott if you want the perfect nature and IVs, you can even catch the three monkeys there, a Hidden Grotto, a trainer you can re-battle for nice XP... and it actually looks nice and feels relaxing. Kinda' like wandering in Amity Square in DPPl (minus the catching-pokemon and all that) or wandering absolutely anywhere with the pokemon of your choice in HGSS.

B/W seasons lasted a month, I'd assume it's the same for B2/W2. yeah, it's weird, but it's also better than a season lasting longer than it takes for you to play through the game...

Prak_Anima wrote:B/W seasons lasted a month, I'd assume it's the same for B2/W2. yeah, it's weird, but it's also better than a season lasting longer than it takes for you to play through the game...

Shrapnel and I joke-theorized that Unova is on the moon of the planet the other games take place on (which is why it has 3 years/PokePlanet year.)

Not complaining, since it's the first game to even have seasons, but it's kind of hilarious and I'm going to mercilessly mock it whenever I can.

Kinda' like wandering in Amity Square in DPPl (minus the catching-pokemon and all that) or wandering absolutely anywhere with the pokemon of your choice in HGSS.

Amity Square always makes me think of this.

And don't remind me of HG/SS-style Walking Pokemon while I'm playing a Pokemon game that's not Heart Gold/Soul Silver; it's like hearing about a good friend who just died needlessly and tragically.

Would've given up every gimmick and new feature ever invented just to have HG/SS-style Walking Pokemon again; seriously, it's just that awesome.

Vaginas are terrifying. That is all.

Re: Pokemon Walking

I rather liked in HGSS how pokemon would react in specific ways to different locations/weather/etc.

The Ghosts are all really cheeky, too, constantly poking you or nipping your feet.

So, sister visited, and brought her DS, so I traded with myself from White to White 2. So now those two annoying "have to trade for each other, lol" bugs have evolved*, and I have a Gigalith (after remembering to unequip the Everstone. Derp). I can't remember what else needs trading to evolve in 5Gen, but I had a bunch on White (uploaded from Diamond) that needed it - so Porygon is now Z, and there's Golem etc.

It was tempting to swap Patrat over for Darkrai or Celebi or something, but I resisted the urge. I did grab Deino and Pupitar though.

*Because KADABRA and so on weren't annoying enough, and they then decided that making Onix hold a Metal Coat while being traded still wasn't annoying enough.

I'm playing through Soulsilver, and have actually been kind of surprised. With my deciding to hatch Togepi by just walking around [start town], it's shown to actually be surprisingly useful, starting with a psychic move to take down the couple of early game poison types. I still hate it on design standards, but it's useful, and when named something acceptably insulting (Over Easy) I don't hate using it.

Yeah, it's kind of handy for that, and worst-case scenario you can teach it Flash to get through the stupid caves. You can also use Metronome as a gimmick. Or not.

I think its final evolution might be useful? I forget.

Gen IV was very very kind to the Togepi line, due to new moves, the Attack/Special Attack divide made sane, and adding a really good evolution.

Togekiss is indeed very powerful, especially if it has the ability that increases chances of added effects occurring (I think it's Serene Grace.)

I named mine Astrotrain (now you see why I'm friends with Shrapnel,) since I intended to use it as a Fly-slave, but it turned out to be one of my better Pokemon once I found a Dawn Stone and evolved it.

Unevolved Togetic will basically murder the fucking face off of the mullet-wearing Ghost-type Gym leader (has a base 80 power/accuracy 100 Psychic move and is immune to Ghost attacks, and Mullet Man only has Gastly-line Pokemon so they're all vulnerable to Psychic attacks.)

Togekiss is about as good as a normal/flying type could possibly be, yeah. It has good special attack, Nasty Plot and that ability Rabbit mentioned lets him hit 60% flinch rate with its STAB Air Slash. Between that and Roost you can button mash your way through legions of grass critters just fine.

Darth Rabbitt wrote:Unevolved Togetic will basically murder the fucking face off of the mullet-wearing Ghost-type Gym leader (has a base 80 power/accuracy 100 Psychic move and is immune to Ghost attacks, and Mullet Man only has Gastly-line Pokemon so they're all vulnerable to Psychic attacks.)

Ah yes, Normal/Psychic, for Ghost Immunity, Psi Resistance, Neutral hits from Fighting, weakness to Bug (oh noes, a whole weakness) and hitting at 120 power when using Psychic.

Sorry, I meant 240 because you're using it on Ghost/Poison types.

Just kidding, you're holding Odd Incense or whatever so when I say 240 I really mean 288 power.

(Not as much fun as Sunny Day STAB Charcoal-holding Fire Blast on Dry Skin Parasects, mind you. I only wish the game would mention how much overkill damage you did.)

Koumei wrote:
Ah yes, Normal/Psychic, for Ghost Immunity, Psi Resistance, Neutral hits from Fighting, weakness to Bug (oh noes, a whole weakness) and hitting at 120 power when using Psychic.

Sorry, I meant 240 because you're using it on Ghost/Poison types.

Just kidding, you're holding Odd Incense or whatever so when I say 240 I really mean 288 power.

It's actually Normal/Flying, although it has decent Special Attack.

(Not as much fun as Sunny Day STAB Charcoal-holding Fire Blast on Dry Skin Parasects, mind you. I only wish the game would mention how much overkill damage you did.)

Personally, I refer to "more than 2x damage" as "exploding."

Strangely enough, my Soul Silver team has/had a Parasect (albeit with Effect Spore) and a Togekiss on it.

Because exploding things are funny. I think I originated that term. Keyword think. It may have been Dr. Fredrick, my non-existant talking cat.

Oh, yeah, for those that forgot, or remember but don't care, I've been playing FireRed again. I shall post the shenanigans and goings-ons of that massive epic... tomorrow. Or the day after. Sometime soon, to be sure. Make no doubt about it.

Oh, Normal/Flying. At least it has a nice moveset. There are far too fucking many Normal/Flying types. And why? Because apparently Flying can't be a type unto itself, it HAS to be Flying Poison, Flying Psychic, Flying Bug, Flying Dragon, or, for regular birdies, Flying Normal.

Which means if you catch an early Gastly in GSC, you can't actually level it up against the birds in the field and use it against the flying gym. I think there was a flying gym at least. It also means on the other side that you lose the Fighting Resistance from Flying.

There was a flying gym in GSC, and ba ram you for you if you picked Chikorita as your starter.