Pokemon

[K9]

I see there's a new one out (Black/White).

I have been trying to find my original Gameboy with Pokemon red for several weeks now to no avail. I played the shit out of that game back when; and a small part of me is inclined to have another spin around with the series. I was wondering if anyone had played much of the other games in the series and whether the games notably improve. Would it be worth jumping straight up to the latest incarnation?

Maybe I'll just find red and it will keep me happy, I'll have to see. I'm getting a bit bored of playing Sudoko on my phone while sitting on buses and tubes.

On that thought, why aren't Nintendo (and other game houses) re-releasing old Gameboy games for smartphones? I can only imagine that this would make a killing.

[Merusk]

Got B&W for the wife & daughter and played a few rounds myself after not having played since the original Blue.  The basic mechanics are still the same but there's a few things I was like "wait, what?" and they both laughed at me for not knowing. (They've played every version to date.)

1) Dual Battles.  4 pokemon enter and fight it out 2v2. 
2) Pokemon hold items now that they can use themselves.
3) Technical Machines (for teaching abilities instead of learning them via leveling) are multi-use now instead of single use.
4) Lots of free items just sitting out in the world. I even ran into someone in the first gym city that gave me a free pokemon.  The girls seemed to think this was nothing novel so it must have happened in the last few.

That's the only differences I noted but I've only played about 15 mins total.

I did try playing my Blue again a year or two ago and it wasn't engaging.  After so many years with color and decent graphics from the GBA and DS the old B&W just couldn't keep me engaged. (Which might be part of why the old GB games aren't being released on smart phones. The other reason being Nintendo is notoriously short-sighted on that sort of thing.)   The new one looks pretty sharp, too.

[Kitsune]

Black and White also have 3 vs 3 battles, battles where you have three pokeys in the fight and can freely rotate which one is acting on a turn, and a new system where, rather than using items from your inventory to heal/buff, you earn points every round to 'buy' the items for instant use.  Previously in multiplayer fights you couldn't use items, to prevent some douche with hundreds of potions dragging things out forever.

The details of the new combat mechanics are here.

[Rendakor]

I picked up White version, I've played every generation since the original. B/W really feel like new games to me; obviously the premise is the same, but there is a lot more "story" to this one since it has a larger cast of recurring characters that go beyond "Gary Oak, what a dick". The graphics have also gotten an upgrade over Gen IV, and (almost?) all the pokemon are new, at least before beating the Elite Four.

I've just gotten to Nimbasa City, which means I can finally breed pokemon. If anyone else is playing and wants to do some trading let me know.

[Hawkbit]

My almost-six year old just bought her very first game with her own money, she bought White.  I went ahead and bought Black to play along side, but I'm not sure when/if I'll really get into it.  Too many other games!

[Ruvaldt]

I've played since Blue/Red and have been a bit of an addict off and on since; played each generation.  I bought a copy of White and will begin it on my trip to Mexico City on Friday.  I even went to the Gamestop promotions and got two Celebis and the other legendaries last month...it's a sickness.  I am completely unspoilered for this one too, which is exciting, even if it is essentially 10+ year-old gameplay.

[Rendakor]

I got the Celebi and the three shiny puppies too; transferred* them to my White version and picked up Zorua and Zoroark. I also grabbed Victini from the Nintendo WiFi, so do that if you haven't yet because he's a badass Fire/Psychic.

Got my 4th Gym Badge as well tonite, should beat it by the weekend or so; hope it has a nice post-game like the last few have.

*The GS event pokemon are the only ones you can transfer before beating the game.

[Hawkbit]

Yeah, we had a meltdown with my kid when she realized it wasthe last day to get Celebi.  So I ran her up there and downloaded it to Heartgold, neglecting to do it on Soulsilver.  So we get home and she's like "AAAAHHH it's not on Soulsilver!!!".  Luckily GS isn't too far away so we went back over and got it on the second game. 

Then I made the stupid mistake of saying that we never got the first two, which led to "What.  Wait.  What???  There were two others? AAAAAHHHH".  Couldn't help her on the first two though, too late!  Sunday was pretty much Pokemon all day long.  The kid is nuts about Pokemon and Minecraft, go figure. 

[Rendakor]

If it would make her day, I have extra copies of the three legendary puppies I can trade you.

[Kitsune]

Ditto.  I grabbed one for each cartridge I have, just to keep in the bank as potentially valuable trade fodder for the future.  You only need one of the three special shiny dogs to unlock Zoroark, thankfully, so she doesn't need all three to get the super sekrit pokemon.

[PROTIP: The special unlock must use the Relocator device to transfer Celebi and/or the dogs from the old game to White/Black.  The normal methods of trading pokemon won't trigger the special events.  So if you do have someone send you the dogs, make sure that you receive it on Gold or Silver, not directly into White or Black.]

[Rendakor]

Hell if she has Celebi she can still get Zoroark, she just has to evolve her Zorua into it (level 30). My extra puppies are back on my Platinum anyway; I wouldn't trade over the ones from my White.

[Hawkbit]

Thanks, both of you.  We'll be okay without.  I think this is more of a 5-year old overreaction to something she doesn't even understand yet.  Much appreciated, though.

[Khaldun]

There's enough tweaks this time that I'm finding it fun to do alongside my daughter. We were both bored by SoulSilver after having played Diamond pretty thoroughly.

[Kitsune]

A lot of the new pokemon are surprisingly powerful, too.  I'm used to just sort of whack-a-moleing the things without much of a second thought, autopiloting my way to the gym leader fights for the only really challenging content.  But this time, some of the wild pokemon out there have actually handed me my ass, and that's something I never really expected to happen.  Not from just being a higher level, but from some pretty clever type and move combos.  I was impressed.

[Rendakor]

I'm definitely feeling the increased difficulty as well; Ferroseed comes to mind as particularly hazardous.

[Soulflame]

Grass/Steel?  That thing would go down to a fire move so fast...

[Kitsune]

One of the things giving me a bad time was Scraggy.  The thing looks all kinds of stupid, but hit surprisingly hard, was surprisingly resilient, and its ability made it stronger for everything it killed.  Nearly swept my whole party.  I had my weaker guys up front, trying to level them up, and they dropped pretty much immediately; by the time I realized I was in trouble and brought in my bigger guys, it had been buffed up considerably and was hitting even harder.

[Mosesandstick]

Offtopic, but I think I'm going to try and do speedy runthrough of the pokemon TCG gameboy game. I loved that game as a kid.

[Rendakor]

Grass/Steel?  That thing would go down to a fire move so fast...

It did, but every time you hit it, it did damage back to your pokemon. Running into them over and over was getting painful, particularly if I tried to use anyone but my already-over-leveled Victini to kill it.

[K9]

I found a website where you can play most GB and GBA games in a flash emulator

So I have been getting my fix of pokemon red.

[Khaldun]

I agree that many wild Pokemon are harder to deal with. My usual strategy of putting a psychic with hypnosis up front when I'm hunting wilds is running into the problem that wilds of even level do a lot of damage or have a lot of survivability. I can put my big fire pig out front but he doesn't have any gentle moves and is only good for capturing a water or fire wild since they stand up to his first attack. The pacing on some of the questline stuff is also good--you really have to conserve moves sometimes to get past numerous trainer fights for the end of a sequence of some kind.

Also it's nice that Team Platinum is saying stuff that everyone has thought about Pokemon--that they're a slave race, etc.--rather than generic Team Rocket douchbaggery.

[Soulflame]

Grass/Steel?  That thing would go down to a fire move so fast...

It did, but every time you hit it, it did damage back to your pokemon. Running into them over and over was getting painful, particularly if I tried to use anyone but my already-over-leveled Victini to kill it.

Use special attacks.  Those don't require contact.

[Kitsune]

The Plasma people have actually managed to make me dislike them too, which is sort of a first for villains in the series.  Usually the bad guys are buffooning around with something like, 'Nyeah, we're going to use this radio tower to make the oceans rise!' that is just too absurd to take seriously.  While the Plasma people are 'We just punched this girl in the face and stole her pet.', which is a much more down to earth act of badness.

But what I'm most looking forward to is the whole global link online portion of the game when it goes live at the end of the month.  I think it has a lot of potential, especially for adults like me who don't have local people to play with/against.

[Khaldun]

The global game probably just means I'm going to get my ass smacked around by 10-year olds--on Diamond/Pllatinum my daughter has a friend who was so surprised to hear that her dad was playing with her that he promptly demanded to come over with his perfectly composed crew of level 100 pokemon and crush me, which he in fact did.

[Hoax]

I don't get Pokemon, how does the you need to perform an action in combat with each pokemon to have them gain xp not piss people off?

[Rendakor]

I don't get Pokemon, how does the you need to perform an action in combat with each pokemon to have them gain xp not piss people off?

They don't have to perform an action, they just have to be in battle for a turn or holding the Exp Share. Have you ever played one before? It's much less of a big deal than you think, especially since there are other ways to level them up (Day Care, Rare Candy, Pokewalker from HG/SS) making it really a nonissue.

[Hawkbit]

I wish they made the Pokewalkers compatible with Black/White.  We actually use them a lot.  It's like what, 1000 or 2000 miles walked to unlock everything?  Sure, you can game them like you can game anything.  But for my kid and I we use them for days that we are out on the town, come back and the loaded pokemon goes up a level!  Awesome.

[Rendakor]

Yea I miss it too; it was an easy way to catch some rare pokemon while at work or whatever. I didn't really use them to level up, but that's only because you can't learn moves leveling up in the Pokewalker and I can't be arsed to see if Pokemon_X learns Useful_Move_Y at Level_Z every time, or risk blowing a Heart Scale to remember it.

[Hawkbit]

As someone who only recently got into Pokemon because my kid liked it, I must say that it seems a lot deeper than I ever gave it credit for.  I had no idea the pokewalker actually did all that, I just thought it was for leveling them and the occasional mini-game treasure hunt.  Heh.

[Rendakor]

There really is a lot to the games; they make up for the lite story with deep mechanics.

[Kitsune]

There's a simple Arkanoid-esque game up on pokemon.com now that if you win, you'll get one of the Eevee flavors to download into your game when their global link goes online.  Which kind of Eevee you get depends on which bubble you collect the most of, so plan accordingly.

[Soulflame]

Espeon is best eeveelution.

[Xanthippe]

On that thought, why aren't Nintendo (and other game houses) re-releasing old Gameboy games for smartphones? I can only imagine that this would make a killing.

Maybe Nintendo is going to make their own smartphone.  That would be awesome. 

[climbjtree]

almost-six year old just bought her very first game with her own money

How does a five year old have forty bucks? When I was five, one dollar was a fortune. Maybe I was just poor as dirt.

[Hawkbit]

Chores mostly, a little bit of birthday cash.  She helps around the house a lot, actually.  Helping bag groceries at the store nets a buck, provided there's no meltdowns.  She's usually pretty well behaved.  I think there was some tooth fairy money in there too.  It took her about half a year to get the $40, I'd wager.  It was a pretty big deal for her.

Goddamn Pokemon... kid was flipping out because she hadn't got Victini yet over the weekend.  So I pushed her character forward through the Pinwheel forest area that she was stuck in, to get to Castelia City.  Finally get her to Victini, only to find out that he's a super low catch rate.  I think I spent three full hours to capture him, late into the 9th.  I had no idea some parts of Pokemon are so 'chancy'.  She was going to be in tears if I didn't capture that damn thing.  I came through, luckily.  And got to be regarded as super-dad for a few hours.  I suppose it was worth it.


EDIT:  Interestingly, she was stuck in the area between badges 2 and 3, but once I got her to the city, she's working on badge 5 now.  That pinwheel forest was a bit much for her age.