Nintendo: Pokemon Red (Pokemon Red fainted!)

Mike used FREE TIME!
It's super effective!

I came, I saw, and I conquered. For a game boy game originally released in 1996, this game requires a hell of a lot of play time. In order to catch/trade for all 150 portable atrocities (legitimately--no cheats), it took me just under 50 hours. (Sadly, this does not include the time I spent in the safari zone, saved in the grass looking for Tauros, Chansey, Kangaskhan and Scyther, turning the game off/on with an unsuccessful hunt. I'd be closer to 65 hours then.)



I chose Red, because I'd never really played it before, and Alan chose Blue. I'm glad I did, because I got a bonus for it. I was able to get my favorites from Blue (Sandshrew/Vulpix) by trading Alan and use the boosted experience points to have a much nicer time battling my way through Kanto.

Overall, this game really stands the test of time. The translation doesn't (perhaps the first recorded instance of 'kekeke' was used by a Channeler in the Lavender Tower), and later versions of the games have corrected some crappy features (Dragonite, you sonuvabitch), but nothing beats playing through Pokemon on an old game boy.

I had a great time playing it, and I'm kind of sad it's over. I'm really glad I had a ton of AAA batteries just sitting in a drawer, otherwise that could have been expensive. (See below - used game boy batteries ready to go to work and be recycled.)



Oh yeah, and my final team ended up being:
Dragonite
Gyrados
Ninetales
Sandslash
Exeggutor
Dodrio

FUN: 5/5 - Gotta catch 'em all! (Gotcha catch 'em all!) Pokemon (mon mon mon mon). Best handheld RPG for the Game Boy. Amazingly fun.

DIFFICULTY: 2/5 - The actual difficulty of the game is surprisingly low. It's not a super hard concept, and if you were to just grind your way through with a Bulbasaur or Squirtle, the game doesn't even seem remotely difficult until the 3rd or 4th badge, when your bread & butter starter isn't effective. I actually used a Butterfree/Pikachu tandem as soon as I got to the Viridian Forest and grinded them out. Took a little bit of grinding, but just dominated my way through the first few badges.

PLAYABILITY: 4.5/5 - The one ding I'm giving this game here is the overall slowness in the system. I know it's an engine made in '95, but still, trading takes forever. So does changing the Pokemon around in Bill's PC. Pretty much everything at the Pokemon Center takes forever. I think that was part of the motivation behind making a free inn.

FRUSTRATION FACTOR: 4.5/5 - Two words. Tauros. Porygon. Dammit, those guys took a long time to catch.

Tauros. UGH, what the hell man? With the walking and walking and walking and OMG IT'S TAUROS! Should I throw a rock? He might run! But you can't catch him without throwing a rock. Ugh, *throw rock* Wild Tauros is angry! Wild Tauros ran! NOOOOO!!! Repeat about a million times. Especially when his encounter rate is officially labeled 4%.

And Porygon! Com'mon man! 9999 coins at the game corner? Winning takes a long time and even buying the damned coins takes FOREVER. Increments of 50 for $1000 are crap! Crap! Lucky I still have my groove for getting 15 coin spins. 4/4 time. Quarter hit, quarter hit, quarter rest, quarter hit. Gets you the goods about 75% of the time. But still! Argh!

BEST TAKEAWAY MOMENT - Beating a bunch of adults from Team Rocket in a Pokemon battle and scaring them off. And, of course, having Professor Oak call Gary out for losing before he could make it up to the Indigo Plateau. Seriously. That guy. What a loser.

OVERALL ASSESSMENT: 5/5 - It's Pokemon! What else is there to say? You love it or you hate it. And those that say they hate it are liars! =D

Nintendo: Pokemon Red (update 2)

I rage quit Pokemon Red last night. I have 35 more to go (after Tauros took literally forever to catch). I was super excited, because I leveled up my Dragonair to a Dragonite in the Victory Road cave on the way to the elite four. I got out and went to the Indigo Plateau Pokemon Center excited to teach him HM02. Ahh, finally, one of my party Pokemon will know fly! (And I don't have to go to Bill's PC and get out my Farfetch'd anymore!)

But wait! DRAGONITE CAN'T LEARN FLY! Apparently, in generation 1 (Red, Blue & Yellow), his wings are just a facade. None of the creators had thought it out at that time that Dragonite ought to be able to learn fly.

So I angrily went to the bulbapedia list of Pokemon in generation 1 that can learn fly. And guess what Pokemon is on there. If you said Doduo, the two-headed ostrich Pokemon, you are correct. Ostrich. As in can't fly. Right? Doduo, the terrestrial bird. Doduo, the Pokemon whose body evolved so the bird "makes up for its poor flying with its fast foot speed. Leaves giant footprints." I guess the creators of Pokemon thought it would be fun if an ostrich could fly, but a dragon couldn't.

So, Doduo can learn fly. And Dragonite cannot. Never mind that Dragonite's picture is of him just chilling, mid-flight. Can't learn fly. Not 'til Gold or Silver did they realize their mistake. Grahhhhhh.

For those wondering here is my final party.
Dragonite
Gyrados
Exeggutor
Alakazam (Since Exeggutor is Grass/Psychic, he's probably going to be dropped for a stupid Doduo or maybe Aerodactyl ugh...)
Sandslash
Ninetales

The rule Alan and I are abiding is no legends/starters in your party.

Nintendo: Pokemon Red

I know this is the STEAM challenge. And I know I am in the middle of Loom. But I have to be honest, I haven't played Loom in a bit, and it's the fault of Pokemon Red.

My brother Alan and I got out the old game boy pockets and we've been trying to catch them all. I've been playing Red (a first for me) and he's been playing Blue. I've got 108/150 and am very close to being finished. Soon, I will be back to this challenge. I just need to get this Mankey off my back first.