My Pokemans, Let Me Show You Them.

[schild]

So...



Started playing Pearl the other night. Running shoes are like manna from heaven. Who else is on the Poketrain?

[Raging Turtle]

Loved these games on the GBA.  How much is a DS running for these days?

[Azazel]

I have a couple of the older ones, but I only play(ed) them while travelling. Never got very far in, really.

[schild]

DS is $80-$120, depending on if you get the old phatty or a hot lite one.

The last Pokemon game I played was Red/Blue and I wrecked it. I plan on wrecking Pearl/Diamond as well. :D

[Strazos]

I got Pearl. I bought Emerald t pass time on a very bad job last summer, didn't get too far, then recently got back into it and curb stomped it.


The only thing that annoys me so far is the animations seems a bit...slow, when compared to the newer 2D versions.


Also, the having the male character wear that lame beret sucks.

[schild]

I ended up making a girl named Relm. /meh, the guy looked too stupid. Also, I named my "friend" 'Lolhair.' He's a douchey looking mofo.

[Trippy]

I'm a little hesitant to get them because of all the time-of-day based stuff. I hate that sort of stuff.

[Strazos]

At least in Emerald, it wasn't tied to anything critical.

[Kitsune]

I got Diamond.  It's a little sad that despite the DS's power they still aren't bothering to render the battles; they could do it on the N64, so it should be doable for the DS, too.  Gripe aside the game is easily the ultimate Pokemon to date, graphics and sound and gameplay all far improved over the GBA versions.  All of the nice things that Gold and Silver had that were yanked from the GBA games for lack of a clock, the berries, the day/night cycle, the TV station, all back now.  The day/night cycle has an impact on which pokemon you find in which areas, but it doesn't affect the core gameplay at all.  The main storyline isn't hampered by the time of day.  I haven't gotten anything resembling a competitive team yet for trying out the wi-fi, but I'm perfectly willing to give it a whirl solely to fuck around.

My friend code is: 0774 0726 8284, or if you're into the phone pad mnemonics, 0 psi 0 rant bug.

[Margalis]

What do you actually do in these games exactly?

[Kitsune]

Your basic RPG fare of running around to save the world.  The difference is that you have to beat the crap out of your potential party members, enslave them in little plastic balls, and train them to serve you.

[Kitsune]

So...


Running shoes are like manna from heaven.

At first I thought this was some kind of weird sarcasm until I saw that you'd only played the original games and therefore hadn't been able to run before.  You are going to flip out when you get the bike, then.

[schild]

So Despite having both games, all those styluses and shit that came with them, I still wanna play the core game on my R4/M3 simply. Does anyone else play backups of their game? Do they still work with the netplay/headset shit? :P Yea, I went there, DEAL.

[Kitsune]

Sorry, don't own any of those RAM carts, can't say whether it'll work worth a damn or not.  But if you own the games, why go to the extra effort of messing around with backups?

[schild]

Because I can carry around 1 memory card with 50 games on it?

[Kitsune]

Well, I don't see any reason why the wifi wouldn't work on a backup game, but DS cards are so teensy that I don't see it as being an inconvenience to carry them around.  I just buy a couple of these and can fit plenty of games in the case with my DS.

[Strazos]

You've seen the picture of Schild's DS collection, right?

Those little cases won't cut it in this case. While I am usually against this kind of backup stuff (because it can easily lead to piracy, which I think sucks), I can surely see the point here.

All your DS games on a single cart? Deal.

[Strazos]

I should probably point out that I have not actually put my copy into my DS yet.

[schild]

Son of a bitch. I keep killing Pokebastards in one hit.

Those motherfuckers need to STOP dying before I catch them.

[Kitsune]

Dude, finesse.  If you're trying to catch them, use a weaker pokemon, or a weaker attack, or an attack that your target is resistant towards.  Anything that will reduce the damage being dealt.  If you're using a level 20 water pokemon with SUPER AQUA DEATH against a level 5 fire pokemon, no wonder it's dropping in one hit.

(Super duper sekret: The attack False Swipe will never kill the target, it will bring them down only so far as 1 HP.  Getting a pokemon with False Swipe makes capturing sooooooo much easier.)

[schild]

I need a new pokedex. Also, it was just shit luck, I kept getting criticals when I was fighting pokemon I wanted. :P

[Kitsune]

One of the best guys for False Swipe is Scyther, a big insane praying mantis thing.  They aren't in Pearl, but can be found in Diamond; I'll send you one once I catch it.  The joy of wi-fi trading, hoo-ya.

[schild]

Pingu learned Water Sport!


ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

[Fabricated]

You are all women.

[Kitsune]

You are all women.

I'm amazed it took this long for this post.  I didn't know who would make it, but that it would be made is inevitable.

[schild]

You are all women.

WoW.

[Fabricated]

You are all women.

WoW.

Dude, Pokemon.

[schild]

You are all women.

WoW.

Dude, Pokemon.

It's a solid RPG that'll take less than a month or two to complete since I don't gotta CATCH 'EM ALL.

Also, dude, chasing purples, raids, and elves.

[Fabricated]

Hasn't the gameplay itself not changed since uh...nearly a decade ago? This series and its never-ending popularity are very high on my "Don't Get It" list.

Also: Friend Codes.

[schild]

I haven't played a Pokemon since the original. I've played hundreds of FPS titles that all played the same in that time.

This series and its never-ending popularity are very high on my "Don't Get It" list.

Hey, neat, you just described Blizzard too.

[Fabricated]

Hey, neat, you just described Blizzard too.

Hey, you liked Diablo 1/2 as well.

Anyway, have they made any significant changes to the gameplay in this edition or what? Also, is there a reason that Nintendo hasn't made an actual Pokemon MMORPG and built Scrooge McDuck's money vault with it?

[Trippy]

What do you actually do in these games exactly?

If you've played the card game, combat in the handheld games is kind of like that -- you have the same sorts of powers and they work in similar ways. So basically it's an RPG-lite where you wander around following a simple story while battling Pokemon-style.

[Kitsune]

Nintendo did the game a disservice by marketing it so heavily to the kids.  They made the right business decision and are rich as hell, but still, didn't do the game itself any favors.

Despite the paper-thin plot and all of the cheaply made, overpriced toys and bad cartoons, Pokemon is a very strategically deep game.  Not against the NPCs, who just pick moves randomly, but against other players it becomes positively labyrinthine.

Take Pikachu, everyone knows Pikachu.  As an electric pokemon, he takes half damage from electrical, flying, and steel attacks, and double damage from ground attacks.  You can teach him an electrical attack, which does bonus damage for being used by an electrical pokemon, and fucks up flying and water pokemon.  But then if someone tosses a ground pokemon out, he's fucked.  So it could be a good idea to teach him a grass element attack to fuck over any ground pokemon that the other person brings out.  Or a move to protect him from ground attacks.

Every tactic has a counter-tactic, and trying to assemble a collection of pokemon that can cover all of your bases is quite the endeavor.  Much more challenging than most turn-based strategy games get.

Pokemon is marketed to kids, but the people who can get the most out of it are the adults.

[Trippy]

Anyway, have they made any significant changes to the gameplay in this edition or what? Also, is there a reason that Nintendo hasn't made an actual Pokemon MMORPG and built Scrooge McDuck's money vault with it?

The DS is their first handheld that has built-in Internet connectivity so it wouldn't have been possible before that. Also I'm not sure how much extra data you can fit on one of the game cards. You would probably need to use the GBA slot as a memory card reader to handle the downloadable content.

Edit: typos

[Xanthippe]

Picked one of each up today for each kid.  They've been buried in it all day.