An FAQ update, more on the gerbils, and 5th gen revelations

First, if you follow me on the Twitter (which is also on the right side of this blog), you know that I turned off my laptop's wi-fi long enough to do a round of heavy FAQing today. I'd say I'm about 1/12 of the way through the walkthrough portion of the guide to this point.

Since the only time I can really write is on weekends - though I do try to do it for several hours at a bent - it's going to be a while before it'll be ready for posting. But I'm just glad for an opportunity to plagiarize myself.

A lot of news came flying out rapid fire this week, so let's start with an update on the gerbils. A screenshot has gotten out from Japan (viewable here; link contains Japanese text) showing, among other things, the natures.

Thanks to a kind soul at Smogon, the natures translate as follows:
Raikou: Rash (+SA - SD)
Entei: Adamant (+Atk -SA)
Suicune: Relaxed (-Def -Speed)

Since the easiest way to force a shiny is to lock it into a certain IV set (see also: Quiet shiny Heatran with Eruption from the 3rd Ranger game), this is likely locked in at this point.

Entei is obviously the big winner here, while Raikou probably has enough Special Defense to survive being Rash. Who uses Earth Power anyway besides a stray Claydol? Suicune gets laughs because why would you give something with a flinch move a -Speed nature, so it's probably going to be ignored even harder now.

And finally, we have the release of images from CoroCoro with the first pics of the 5th gen starters and trainers. Sample image has been uploaded to my Photobucket and more images should be on the front page of Pokebeach at the time of the post and have been uploaded elsewhere.

The male trainer: Honest to Goddish, it looks like they aged up Lucas and gave him some more hair. Then again, Lucas had the younger Revolver Ocelot look going and they seem to have gotten away from that. Six Pokeballs. Enough to kill anything that moves.

The female trainer: Um, yeah, they did age up the trainers. Apparently, they're going to be 16-18. Which mike explain the shorts that would make Daisy Duke herself blush. Maybe she should cut off the giant ass ponytail and use that to extend her cutoffs a little bit. And are those pockets, or did she decapitate Klonoa and shove his head down her pants?

The grass starter: God, he's so cute and yet you want to punch him in the face for looking so smug. It's either based on the gecko or a Japanese legged snake... which could mean a Grass/Dragon final form. Which would be awesome.

 The fire starter: OMG A FIRE PIG I WANT THIS. This WILL be my starter (though I'm importing the Grass one as well) unless his movepool has absolutely nothing in it. And they've got two major influences for the final form: A form of the final boss from Twilight Princess, or the boar god from Princess Mononoke. Plus there's no way they can make a Fire/Fighting type for three straight generations... right?

The water starter: I'm sort of waffling on this one. It's either the mutant offspring of Piplup and Bidoof or Mudkip and a snowman with that shell of his. Based on the coloring it'll probably go Water/Ice or just stay Water in the final form. People think it's cute - and hey, it's a Water otter (Wotter?) but I'm just not feeling it. Maybe if it was paired with Cyndaquil and Chikorita, I'd be more into it (also known as the Totodile principle).

HT to rtwelve on Twitter for having the proof on Wotter

Update to the Platinum Location guide and news musings

I've submitted an updated version of the Platinum Location guide to GameFAQs, which should go live on Monday. It contains the following:

- A rollup of a lot of typo corrections and filling in some missing "other method" information (mainly that I missed Route 226-230 pretty badly for swarms/Pokeradar information). HT to The Mattinator @ GameFAQs for also pointing out that I've been spelling Kirlia wrong for the last SIX YEARS.

- Added in a section where I explain how to regenerate legends in Platinum. I'm pretty sure this is a new feature for Platinum, but I'm not sure.

Speaking of new features, there's been a lot of news recently hitting about GSDS, so let me get some quick hits in:

- So Kyogre/Groudon AND Rayquaza are going to be catchable? Can we get random Latis so I can throw out Ruby and Sapphire? In all seriousness, I get the feeling as the release date nears we're going to find out that Lotad, Seedot et all are going to be version exclusive, they're going to open up Cerulean Cave so we can catch Mewtwo... basically, they're going to make it so DSi owners aren't completely boned as far as finishing the Pokedex goes (as long as they have friends with Pokemon, which sums up Japan in a nutshell).

- The movie Arceus unlocks Dialga, Palkia, or Giratina at L1. Watch them come with their orb and the other two Pokemon's special moves (as I rub my hands in glee at the mere thought of a Spacial Rend Dialga...)

- Jirachi's new toy (Draco Meteor) makes it the first Pokemon to resist the move while learning it except for Arceus-Steel. Good for a gimmick, anyway.

- I have to ask: Is the 1st-slot Pokemon following you going to be a menu option? Sure, I'm going to have Lucario out in front for a while to lure all the furries into shotgun range, but it's going to get old after a while.

- It may take the PokeWalker to get me to raise something to L100 this gen, because you don't need to otherwise. (btw GameFreak, if you could bring the auto-L50/L100 options to local wireless play, that'd be great).

- Bulbapedia headline: "(site) reports HG/SS will include Kanto". Not exactly a big story. Now, if they DIDN'T include Kanto, even Iwata would hear the fanboy rioting as he goes to his daily swim through the piles of 10,000 yen bills at NCL. In fact, there's a part of me that kinda wishes they left Kanto out and blew out Johto. But as it stands, the streak of Kanto being playable in every gen continues. Fire Red/Leaf Green remakes for 5th gen confirmed?