So much for importing Black and White

Going into E3, I wasn't expecting a whole lot of stuff coming out of Nintendo's conference. I was expecting that there'd be the usual 1 or 2 games for the end of the year, and I'd be able to import Black and/or White - heck, I was even thinking about grabbing whichever system had the better conference between the Triple and the 360. (BTW, the answer would have been Sony coming out of the Monday press conference.)

Then came Tuesday, and Nintendo dropping more bombs per minute than any press conference I've ever seen. (For a random sample, see the June 16th Penny Arcade.) As such, we have to reconsider this thing.

For starters, if I buy one system this year it's not the PS3, it's going to be the 3DS. Word is they're going to have 20-30 games in the launch window, and my backup DS is going to hell in a handcart right now as it is. Plus, if I'm going to get a system that uses 3D I may as well grab one that I can afford and doesn't need glasses considering wearing 3D glasses over my prescription ones is bad.

But that's still no guarantee that the 3DS is going to come out this year... no problem. There's literally 16 games that have or will come out this year that I want to pick up. Basically, I'm not going to have TIME to try and play a game in Japanese when I barely had enough Pokemon/Japanese language knowledge to get through Heart Gold and Soul Silver before release. If I play Black or White early it's going to be vicariously through FAQs.

Here's my shopping list, starting with the stuff that's already out in 2010 and I still need to pick up:
~ Glory of Heracles (next $10 sale on Amazon, it's mine)
~ WarioWare DIY
~ Monster Hunter Tri
~ Trauma Team
~ Super Mario Galaxy 2
~ Backyard Sports: Sandlot Sluggers (don't laugh, I'm supporting a studio in my hometown by doing it)

And now the games confirmed for release in 2010 based on "WANT~" factor:
1) Epic Mickey (4Q 2010)
If you told me that Warren "Deus Ex" Spector would appear on stage at a Nintendo E3 conference, I would have laughed in your face. Throw in an awesome graphical style and Oswald the freaking Rabbit (once traded for Al Michaels) and this is officially day 1.

2) Kirby: Epic Yarn ("Holiday")
The fact that Kirby Wii exists was shocking enough, but the game itself looks like it's going to be a console Canvas Curse. In case you didn't know, this is a good thing. Even if it's Perrin Kaplan's final revenge by making ANGRY KIRBY~ canon.

3) Dragon Quest IX (July 11)
I've bought the last three mainline Dragon Quest games that came out in North America (8, 4 and 5) and enjoyed all of them immensely. And hey, maybe if I buy this one they'll bring over 6 with Slime Curling.

4) NBA Jam (October)
It's NBA Jam, and the original developer is involved. I played the original and Tournament Edition to death on the SNES. Add in the potential for the First Baller as a hidden character and yeah, I gotta get this one.

5) Donkey Kong Country Returns (Holiday)
I picked up the Metroid Prime Trilogy recently and have a new respect for Retro, so the fact that they're going to do something different is nice. If it's more DKC2 than the original, this is going to be amazing.

6) Super Scribblenauts (October 2010)
The original was a great sandbox but the controls weren't exactly tight. They've added d-pad controls and even the stylus works better. Plus adjectives. Yeah, you got me.

7) Sin and Punishment: Star Successor (June 27)
Just picked up the original on Virtual Console to try it out, and it's actually kind of fun - if a little frustrating with analog controls. I suspect the sequel will be a lot easier to control with the pointer.

8) Metroid: Other M (August 31)
Originally they had this scheduled for my birthday, which would have been the best birthday present in history. Still, two weeks after ain't bad. And it's a Metroid game done by the Ninja Gaiden guys, which means it'll make diamonds look soft.

9) Goldeneye (October)
Thankfully, my hatred for Activision and everything they currently stand for means I can knock $5 off the top by buying this used. It'll serve as my return to a true first-person shooter after my last one was, ironically enough, the original.

10) Golden Sun: Dark Dawn (Holiday)
This one's conditional, as I want to take a weekend or two and play the originals before confirming. 4 Warriors of Light could swap in here. If it holds, this'll be my Christmas RPG.

So I probably won't have a problem hitting Club Nintendo Platinum next year. All told, this is nearly $1000 worth of games. All donations will be unexpected, but appreciated.

June CoroCoro leak - And The Leaks Played On

So after giving the recent leak a couple of days to simmer and to work out some of the information that was missing, we need to look at this another way. Specifically, I'm looking at this the way the Center for Disease Control does in "And The Band Played On" (as cited by ESPN's Bill Simmons in this column of April 16).

This breaks down to three simple questions:

• What do we think?
• What do we know?
• What can we prove?

Going revelation by revelation, let's start with features.

Random Online Battles
What do we think? I think this was a stunning omission from the gen IV DS games designed to sell Battle Revolution, and now that it's integrated into the DS games proper we're not seeing another console battling game in this generation.
What do we know? I know this is going to be flooded with Elite 4 teams, hacks, and ubers. Making it functionally useless except as a team checking measure.
What can we prove? That Nintendo may be softening their stance on this whole "internet" thing a little bit.

Professor Araragi, first female professor
What do we think? I think we know how they're writing Brock out of the anime for this generation.
What do we know? We have an entire region suffering from a collective bad hair day between the female trainer and our professor friend.
What can we prove? There's a lot of traditions being chucked out the window with this generation.

Zekrom: Dragon/Electric, ability "Tera Voltage"
Reshiram: Dragon/Fire, ability "Turbo Blaze"
What do we think? Kyogre and Groudon have new best friends. Tera Voltage sounds like either a Scrappy for Electric v Ground or a jacked up Motor Drive, Turbo Blaze sounds like a jacked up Flash Fire.
What do we know? Two very powerful typings (Dragon/Fire resisted by Heatran, Dragon/Electric has 4 Pokemon) and the ability names means these guys are not playing any defense.
What can we prove? The third dragon will be a neutral color (gray) and will have a type that's early in the type chart and formerly Special (Ice has the clubhouse lead)

Meguruko: Ground/Dark, Intimidate or "Overconfident" (+1 stage ATK boost every KO)
What do we think? I think this is one of the very, VERY few occasions in which I will ignore Intimidate on a Pokemon because Overconfident is that nasty. Also, I think this is a 1st form of at least a 2 stage family, and the final form is going to be this gen's Dragonite-class Pokemon.
What do we know? If it has Pursuit, it's going to be even more broken coming in on say, Rotom and getting a free +1.
What can we prove? The only thing keeping this out of my fulltime party ingame is if it gets the Slow growth rate.

Hihidaruma: Fire, "Invigorate" (ignores added effects for higher damage) ability
What do we think? I think Invigorate will work with any move that would trigger Shield Dust, will be about a 20% boost, and will be a competitive darling because you actually get a benefit for taking luck out of the game.
What do we know? The design for this Pokemon is based on a gorilla that beats its stomach, meaning it's -190 to get Belly Drum.
What can we prove? If it's another Fire/Fighting type, heads will roll.

Shimama: Electric, Lightning Rod/Motor Drive, has "Wild Bolt" (recoil move)
What do we think? I think Wild Bolt is more Take Down analogue than Head Smash analogue, and that this is a base Pokemon.
What do we know? Motor Drive means slow and relying on the boost, and this will be another argument for an Ability tutor.
What can we prove? If you don't think this image is too cute for words, please obtain a soul at your earliest convenience.

Mamepato: Normal/Flying, "Pidgeon Breast" (Hyper Cutter for Defense) or Super Luck
What do we think? Between its pose and Super Luck Honchkrow can file a gimmick infringement lawsuit, and someone involved in the RBY localization is going to get an undue amount of crap for using the name "Pidgey" already.
What do we know? It's your obligatory early game bird and will probably evolve twice.
What can we prove? It's already better than Pidgey and probably not as good as Starly.

Gear: Steel, Plus or Minus, move "Gear Saucer" (multihitting move)
What do we think? Plus/Minus could be a controllable split evolution. Also, an early revelation of a pure Steel could mean that Steel is going to be an early gym (if not the FIRST gym)
What do we know? There's an awful lot of multi-hitting moves in this leak, for some reason.
What can we prove? Given that it looks like Bronzor with a coat of paint and some pieces missing, it's going to have something to set it apart from its fellow round Steel.

Munna: Psychic, Forewarn/Synchronize, "Telekinesis" ("causes foe to float"), the Dream Eater Pokemon
What do we think? This better not be a repeat of the counterparts introduced in Gen III (Beautifly for Butterfree), because by appearances and the fact that it's based on the Tapir like Drowzee it could be a replacement. If it's a baby form, it's going to LOSE Synchronize when it becomes a Drowzee.
What do we know? Telekinesis is another move that's designed for double battles for use on your partner, because it's hard to determine why you'd want to give your opponent Levitate (if that's what it does) unless they have Overconfidence.
What can we prove? That they have REALLY planned this out considering a reference to a pink Pokemon with a floral pattern existed since Rock Tunnel of RBY.

Chiramii: Normal, Cute Charm/Technician, Sweep Slap (multi-hitting move)
What do we think? An ability has not been ignored this harshly since, ironically, Cute Charm on Clefairy. And its English name is probably just the last i lopped off.
What do we know? Yes, it's based on the Chinchilla. And it's going to be another early game Normal (think: Rattata)
What can we prove? Any other similarities between this and Pachirisu are entirely coincidental.

My current Black/White ingame team: Grass starter, Fire starter, Meguruko, Hihidaruma (please let one of the Fire types get a second type).

Signs your Pokemon may be about to kill you

First of all, yeah, I buggered with the template if you're curious. I'd like to think it gives this blog a little more personality than solid white.

I'd post a comment here about the new Pokemon that leaked out of CoroCoro today but I'm too busy drooling Homer Simpson-style over the Crocodile. New, awesome type combo of Ground/Dark + ability that only makes his resistance, er, attack higher every time it KOs something? When it gets type bonus on Earthquake? I'm never letting it out of my party. Especially when it could be the next Garchomp.

However, the map of the new region that leaked out appears to have maybe 2 cities on it. The first Sinnoh map we saw looked the same, but rumors continue to flow that they're actually moving to ditch the 8 gym format. If I had spies at GameFreak, they'd be saving the same thing. Which begs the question of what happens if there's no 8th badge to control outsider Pokemon.

Hell, it's entirely possible that they might extend the rules for outsider Pokemon to include every Pokemon. And if they really want to go all out with it, it may be more than rebelling while in battle.

Here's some of the warning signs you should watch out for in the next generation when your Pokemon may be ready to kill you.

* When using Whirlpool, you get halfway across before the Pokemon jumps back INTO the Poke Ball

* Your Pinsir came with Guillotine and won't let you delete it

* A large portion of Weezing's Smokescreen ends up going back into your face

* Your Fighting types have replaced the punching bag they normally use for workouts with a Real Doll that looks suspiciously like you

* Everyone raves about how good your Drapion's Sniper is, but it has Battle Armor

* The Daycare calls to tell you that your two Beedrill have suddenly grown a whole hive and they sound like the horns at the World Cup

* Every time you call out Houndoom, it licks its lips

* Scyther has been asking Porygon2 to pull up the Clint Marlachuck video more often recently

* After using TM 09 on your Shroomish, it only remembers the "Bullet" part.

THIS IS GREAT NEWS!! FOR FURRIES!!!

Some quick thoughts while trying to unsee Reshiram's rather phallic feathers...

... is this the first time Nintendo of America has broken a Pokemon before Pokemon Japan?

... they better have some epic announcements for the hour conference at E3 if they're blowing the release date for Black and White three weeks before on their Twitter? Then again, Killzone 3 got announced by a GamePro cover, so what do I know.

... about 20 other people have said this, but it bears repeating here: The only reason Reshiram is the Black mascot and Zekrom is the White mascot is purely for contrast reasons.

... ReshiRAM. ZekROM. Wanna take bets on how many other legends are going to have technology jokes in their name? Is the Giratina-analog going to be called WenCPU?

... Time to Rule 34 of the female trainer and Zekrom had to be 6 hours, and Reshiram within 20 minutes. Good lord.

... Zekrom's going to be Dark-type or some psychotic new combo that's part Ghost. I don't know about Reshirom, but if one more person suggests this means a Light type, slap them. If a new type was coming it would be shouted from the heavens. I'm leaning toward Dragon/Psychic.

... could they hurry up and announce the final forms for the starters already?

My Virtual Console Czar platform

Given that I love a series that some say hasn't innovated since 1998, you'd think I have a love for old games. You'd be correct - visiting the Nintendo press site on Mondays to see what will be available on the Virtual Console that week is one of my weekly habits, along with watching Raw and cursing the fact that I continue to have to work for a living.

However, recently I've come up empty. In fact, this month has seen a grand total of ONE release - and it's a game I've bought twice in Kirby Superstar. The most we'll likely have this month is two games unless they launch a new system on Memorial Day, which has odds similar of that of a Pokemon MMO being announced at Electronic Three next month. (That is to say, never.)

At one time, there were five games a week coming out. Presumably this was to seed the service, as it has gone from 5 all the way down to 0. Some might say the rise of WiiWare (and recently, DSiWare) has something to do with it, or blame the general lack of care toward old games on other consoles. But still, this service can get a lot better and serve as a huge moneymaker for Nintendo as long as someone gives a crap about it.

Which is why I'm throwing my hat into the ring for the apparently non-existent position of Virtual Console Czar (North American division).

But of course, if you're running for office, you need a platform.

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

Why I'm Allergic to Fat Eggs

There's certain Pokemon that I just don't want to use if blowing through a regular battle or (god forbid) a tournament situation. Some of them have movepool issues, some of them are too slow for an ingame rush, and some of them spilled ink on GameFreak staffers at the time of their development and lose on all counts as a result.

But there's one I have hated for nearly 10 years, to the point where I actually built entire GSC teams around getting it out of the way when I played competitively. One of my greatest moments was shutting up an annoying git on the bots with an Alakazam, and only because it had Psychic, Fire Punch AND HP Dark.

It's the fat egg.

If modern tiering rules were in place at the time of GSC and the bots weren't run by someone who got nuked from Azure Heights due to not knowing when to quit arguing with He Who Has The Button, I have no doubt that the egg would have been the first or second suspect (behind Snorlax) and probably banned for severely imbalancing the game. At the tail end of the game, it was being used even more than Snorlax - something like 35% of the time. Granted, there isn't as much choice (or as many battles) on GSBot then there would be on modern Shoddy, so it's not as impressive than Scizor getting 25% now. But at least Scizor (and Snorlax then) were actually doing damage.

Check that Bulbapedia link above again. Look at the base stats. They're like modern Garchomp - perfectly designed to be gamebreaking. Now consider that the equivalent of EVs in the 2nd gen allowed you to max everything. Imagine if natures existed in 2nd gen and the defense boost existed.

As it is, it had 1 true counter - and that required a 10% boost item since the Choice items didn't exist yet. It's imbalacing on the defensive end because it can recover constantly and has a perfect Counter for any physical attack you care to throw at it. It shouldn't take an hour and a half to have one battle, but I had more of those than I care to count.

I took a sabbatical from battling after Ruby and Sapphire were released, largely due to the fact that I was sick of debating the cheapness of Beedrill (I'm not saying you can't battle with it, I'm saying right now we can't use it so why bother programming it in). Once this got sorted out, I dipped my toes back into it when I wasn't e-fedding... and then I read blueshirt's moveset FAQ. Which includes, and I quote:

"blisseyisadirtylittlecheappinkwhorethatputregiceoutofajob"

in the description of Regice.

Yes folks, the Pokemon that single handedly made half of the attacks in the game UNUSABLE was back and worse than ever.

I haven't been back since.

Though I have thought about it again - the pendulum has swung so far to the physical side that Blissey is down to about 11-12% usage instead of 33%. Still, is there anything that can be done to nerf it?

Movie Gifts - The new Lovely Kiss Nidorans

Coming soon, to a theatre near you according to Bulbapedia, are four special Pokemon - three shiny gerbils and a fateful encounter Celebi. In addition to unlocking that one event in HG/SS, they all have new toys that nearly caused me to kill a Skitty upon finding out about them.

And the gerbils are all shiny, if you're into that sort of thing. But anyway...

Raikou: Zap Cannon, Weather Ball, Aura Sphere, Extremespeed
Entei: Flare Blitz, Extremespeed, Howl, Crush Claw
Suicune: Sheer Cold, Aqua Ring, Air Slash, Extremespeed
Celebi: Leaf Storm, Recover, Healing Wish, Nasty Plot.

"I'm killing Skitty right now!"

Let's look at this for each one:
Raikou: Zap Cannon is functionally useless in a world with Thunderbolt TMs (Voltorb Flip notwithstanding), and Extremespeed gives him a little bit of priority. Weather Ball is fun for Rain teams and even Hail teams (100 base Ice! Suck it Gliscor!), but oh mama, Aura Sphere. Ghost + Fighting is still resisted by little to nothing... and the ones that can take Shadow Ball + AS don't like getting Thunderbolts to the face.

Entei: I have to say, the fact that they're playing to this very blog with Crush Claw is amusing enough (hey guys, it's supposed to go to Dunsparce). Still, Howl makes Extremespeed and the long-awaited Flare Blitz extremely potent - so the question is, who's your physical Fire, Entei or Arcanine? Entei has Stone Edge and Iron Head, but Arcanine has Intimidate... hrm.

Suicune: Probably comes out of this with the least - let's face it, Sheer Cold is BANNED YOU *redacted* in most serious battles and it needs Extremespeed the least. Still, Aqua Ring could be a real pain in the rear on something with these HP/defense stats, and Air Slash is nice for coverage if nothing else. (So much for Ludicolo stalling it out).

Celebi: It only gets one new toy, but what a toy it is. The question is, does Celebi have the defenses to pull off more than one Plot before it gets hit with one of its multiple weaknesses and dies or BPs out of there? It's too bad Celebi doesn't have a tail, though - flavour-wise, Nasty Plot is one of the last moves you'd expect to see on Celebi.

This is part of the joy of post-release content for Pokemon, though - this may be the craziest post-release thing we've seen since those fateful Valentine's Day promos in New York that led to the existence of Lovely Kiss/Horn Drill Nidoking back in the GSC days. Or Eevee with Growth. Or Bubble Magikarp. The problem with all of this goodness is that because of the mandatory Shiny on the gerbils, their natures are locked in as well. And it's not known what nature that's going to be.

Basically, what this comes down to is this: If Raikou is stuck on something stupid like Bold, it's a stinkbomb waiting to happen.

Rapid Reversal

Thanks to DarthVivi in the comments here and a couple of people in the secret board who e-mailed me to direct me how to file a ticket advising GameFAQs management as to what happened last week.

Although they probably get hundreds of these tickets every week - usually after every swing of the banhammer - the management understood what happened and after I could re-verify everything the account was restored to its old level.

I'd like to think that my tenure didn't have anything to do with it, but as long as it came back I can still post on the boards... and I did kind of miss it. It's become such a part of my interwebs routine that it's awfully hard to quit it cold turkey.

Lastly, to the person or persons who caused this whole situation to begin with, I would like to refer you to the reply given in the matter of Arkell v. Pressdram.

So Long, GameFAQs (for now)

April 8/10: See most recent entry

On July 28, 2000, I made a stunning discovery - the site I had been hitting for the one hour a day I could use my ISP's dialup internet for grabbing Pokemon guides had message boards. And hey, I recognize one of the posters - it's the guy who wrote that really good FAQ for the Yellow version.

I picked a username that turned out to be, in retrospect, an unintelligble mess ("cmsnrub25") and started posting there. I started on the Yellow and Red boards, went to 217 (the "Pokemon" special interest board) and built up some great relationships with the regulars on the Pokemon Gold/Crystal boards as well that we ended up carrying over to a secret board. I gained the confidence to write FAQs for them and damn near got a job (only stopped by a Chapter 7) because of it.

I made Saturday picks, proved I could handle quadruple-overtime NHL games in Vancouver by posting on the NHL (sorry, "Hockey") board at 4:45am my time and xfd'd the Sharks.

I somehow managed to get invited to a second secret board - so secret that it doesn't exist - and did the right thing for a fellow poster when they were going to get boned over by my former employer. I was even considering getting into an Extreme Warfare Revenge diary.

That won't be happening anymore, thanks to a bit of my own stupidity.

Donald and Kozuki vs. Excessive Level Grinding

So I've played through all 16 badges of Heart Gold now and hit a massive roadblock - one that's going to require either more grinding that should be allowed by law, or me busting out my Action Replay for an emergency supply of Rare Candies.

The situation? I'm going to get slaughtered by Red if my party holds as it is.

Kallen (my character)'s team is as follows:

Butterfree (Rakshata): Bug Buzz, Psybeam, Gust, Sleep Powder
Utility, sleeper.
Electivire (Akatsuki): Thunderbolt, Thief, Ice Punch, Earthquake
Surrogate Electric killer, is going to get me a Light Ball when I eventually fight Red. Currently packing Fire Punch in that slot.
Scizor (Gurren): Bug Bite, Bullet Punch, Rock Smash, Strength
It's a freaking Scizor, with Technician. 'nuff said.
Houndoom (Seiten): Flamethrower, Dark Pulse, Thunder Fang, Nasty Plot
Venusaur killer
Starmie (Gekka): Surf, Ice Beam, Psychic, Grass Knot
Fills in holes on the team, beats Charizard and puts a nice dent in Blastoise/Lapras
Hitmonlee (Burai): Hi Jump Kick, Earthquake, Blaze Kick, Rock Climb
Need Rock Climb to get to him, need HELLOJUMPKICK to get rid of Snorlax

The problem is, they're all L56.


Red's LOWEST Pokemon is L80.

Localized Walls of Text

First of all, the giveaway went as well as can be expected. That is to say, I gave myself everything over again but nobody else had a Pokemon game with them or already had them. (Hell, one of the guys had a freakin' Yu-Gi-Oh game with him. No, he was not a freaky fish guy. In America.)

I did end up getting both - Heart Gold was pre-ordered in full, Subpar Silver by way of swapping Rhythm Heaven (because I have no rhythm) and the first Layton game. In what can be only described as the worst trade since Kessel for 2 1sts and a 2nd, I also traded my unused Pearl and basically unused PBR for the first guide and $7 off the second.

Now that we have the North American versions, I can update the original review of the Japanese version with the stuff I didn't get to the first time...

The Pokewalker
Two MILLION steps? Are you frakking insane?

With that said, I'm actually using it quite a bit. Not for catching things yet - I'm trying to build up to 100,000 watts so I can get all of the Pokemon out of it, which by my estimation will take anywhere from two weeks to two months depending on how many walks I can justify. It's actually forced me to change my routine at work though - I'm on the 11th floor of a 18-story office building, so on breaks or lunch I go down to the ground floor, walking around the office complex and getting a good tour of the downtown. All while leveling up (random Pokemon here).

The times I've dared to use the Dowsing Machine or encounter Pokemon it's mainly been vendor trash - Geodude, Slowpoke, and Oddish with the more common items. I'd like to go back and get some of the rare stuff, but again, you need the Watts to unlock the courses - and the one you really want ("easy" Spiritomb, Feebas, etc)  is 100,000 Watts at 20 steps each.

Probably the most annoying thing is that if you level up to a point where you would learn a move, you miss the move. Whoopsie. Good thing I got to Blackthorn already, or that would really be a problem.

Oh, and I like how there's already people trying to cheat the Pokewalker. It's called running, folks. The only one I support is a dryer, tumble with no heat. Don't do what someone I know did and try to wash it, though. $10 for a refurb after shipping is not fun.

Voltorb Flip

"I miss the Game Corner already. Card Flip comes off like a high-risk Picross demo." - my 12:30am tweet on 3/16

 This was the first impression I got when arriving in Goldenrod and throwing a fit when I couldn't buy the coins for Dratini or TM 35. It's a tricky game at first until I was able to get a handle on the strategy for it - but it's still freaking annoying when you're up at L6 and get dropped because you misclick a bomb.

The strategy for it is summed up pretty well in this FAQ, and I'm not going to recreate it here. Just next time Pokemon Company, please include an option to buy coins. If you can afford it, then you deserve the rewards - and there's no gambling involved if the reason for taking out the slots was truly for the sake of avoiding the "gambling references" ESRB descriptor.

Also, it's dangerous to go alone. Take this.

Other Stuff
- As predicted, Dialga is a gamebreaker. I actually stopped using it after it sat back and laughed at Whitney for about 10 minutes straight before Dragonbreathing it to death. (Though to be fair, I ditched my entire team at that point for eggs).

- 1, 2, 3, 1, 2 still works for Extremespeed Dratini even when you know what the actual answer is.

- Now that I understand what they're saying when you talk to the Pokemon following you, I can actually somewhat tolerate it. Just do yourself a favour - don't look at your dragon's Orb the wrong way, or it may be YOU getting Dragonbreath to the face. Wonder what would happen if it was say, a Thick Club Marowak?

- I realized recently that there are actually five families that are post-National exclusive despite being in the Johto Pokedex - Porygon, Sneasel, Houndour, Electabuzz and the one I forgot... Slugma. Now do you see why I thought it was only four families?

- They kept Donphan in Gold, so these are remakes of the Japanese versions as I suspected they would be. So the final score is still 8-3-2 Heart Gold in the version exclusive race. So much for "Superior" Silver, right GAF?

- I am this close to setting up a Twitter feed for my Gold trainer. Watch this space.

Announcement regarding HG/SS Launch Day

3/12/10: Please note - the time has been moved up as EB Games is opening an hour early for the launch. I'll be there at 10:00 ADT.

Still waiting to pick up my copy of NA-version Heart Gold on Sunday, but I did come across a homebrew app recently that when combined with a DS flashcart, lets me create my own Pokemon distribution ROMs.

I'm choosing to use my powers for awesome, however - and I wish I could've done this at Platinum launch, but figure now I have the bigger platform of a blog so I can hopefully get some people to show up for this.

On March 14, I'm going to be at EB Games in Dartmouth, NS (Mic Mac Mall) to complete my preorder, hopefully get the Ho-oh figure and (maybe) the Monster Hunter Tri demo. The store opens with the mall at noon on Sundays, but I'm going to be there as close to 10am as possible.

And I'm going to have 2 DSs, and every relevant distribution ever done to make sure everyone's as ready as possible for the launch.

Quick & Dirty Thoughts: Sands of Destruction

I was originally going to call this "x things I Think I Think" but I'm pretty sure Peter King of SI would be crying gimmick infringement. So I'll stick with "Quick & Dirty Thoughts" while waiting for the NA release of Heart Gold and a newly-functional Pokewalker. There are no spoilers here.

I recently picked up Sega's "Sands of Destruction" (aka World Destruction) because I needed a RPG to play and Glory of Heracles got off to a really slow start. Plus, I was ticked at the world as it was and destroying the world seemed like a good idea at the time.

I did manage to finish it, so it had to be doing something right, but it did have some issues. For starters...

- The battle system is equal parts simple and frustrating. You'll basically ignore an entire class of your attacks starting about the 1/3 mark of the game once you build up a stat system. The frustrating part is that some random encounters need 2-3 attack buffs just to do any damage at all, and that's if you're not missing all of your attacks. Plus, the enemies will sometimes get 8-9 turns IN A ROW for one guy - especially egregious with boss battles where these attacks are doing 1/4 of your health per hit. That's not Pokemon Battle Frontier cheap, but it's close.

- The cutscenes can be skipped, which is nice. However, the in-battle cutscenes can't. This gets annoying for two reasons - when the boss is unleashing its super move for the nth time you want to skip it, and once you start being able to use yours regularly you want to see them once and then go on. My clock finished at 23 hours and I'm pretty sure I could've taken 1-2 hours off if I could've skipped the super move cutscenes just in the second-last dungeon I did.

- It seems like the developers were counting on me using DS Sleep Mode a lot more than I did. I was playing this game a lot prior to going to bed, and can count at least three or four times where I was at least an hour (counting the story sequences) from the last save and had to turn it off because the next save point was two areas away. Either let me save anywhere, or put a heal and save point in towns and at the start/end of each extended areas. Is it that hard?

- The last character you pick up is useful for about an hour before he becomes bloody pointless. His only useful skill (a revive spell) gets trumped by the mandatory party member you get shortly after, and he needs either a metric assload of grinding or cash spent on skill points before he's caught up to you - which screws over the rest of the party when you have to buy their 2nd-best equipment at the endgame. Five party members is enough, especially when 4 of them are useful and you only have 3 slots.

- There's a lot of delays when the character is speaking while the lip-syncing catches up. I have to wonder if this was a localization issue.

It's not all bad, though.

- The storyline has a nice hook in which you appear to start out as a Villain Protagonist - wait, I'm the one who's trying to DESTROY the world? Even after things shake down to a basic RPG plot, it's still what I was looking for at the time and has some cool twists near the endgame.

- I'm a sucker for a Kato plot and Mitsuda music and wonder what it would've been like if they weren't going for a SERO B (equivalent to a low-end T game for the ESRB, though I'd have rated it E10). It's not as good as Chrono Trigger, but what is?

- The game doesn't use the stylus unless you want to play with the camera, and the camera is usually in the right spot so it doesn't come up at all. The game does a good job of using both screens for battle (unlocking a second set of attacks) and having the map up top where I'm more comfortable looking was a nice touch. The only thing I'd do is give an option to switch the map to the touchscreen and maybe allow control with that method.

I wouldn't pick it up for full price, but might look into it if I get more cash and if it comes up on an Amazon sale.

3 Things For Gen V - The Dark Gym

In the Japanese version, the Dark type is actually equivalent to "Evil" with Psychic being the equivalent of a "Light" type. This may be the only reason why the type has been solely under-represented in terms of Gym Leaders and Elite 4 members.

As a matter of fact, there's only been two primary users of the Dark type - Karen (Johto) and Sidney (Hoenn) and no Gym Leaders. Compare that to the other types...