Let's Play Pokémon HeartGold, Episode 3: Meet the Fockers... I Mean Falkner

Day 3 - Sunday, March 28th 2010

Welcome back to Let's Play Pokemon HeartGold! In the last episode, we captured Bellsprout and continued on to Violet City, and entered the Sprout Tower. I WOULD be using the Pokewalker in this one, but we don't have a small enough screwdriver to unscrew the fricking thing.

I was up at the top of the Sprout Tower. Three trainers lead the way to... whatever the boss was. They each had Bellsprouts again, and it rose by one how many they had with each step. Once the three trainers were defeated, I like slipped through a crack in the wall or something and there was that emo Derrick kid! Behind him was the elder of the Sprout Tower.

The elder started giving me and him a lecture about how Pokemon aren't weapons to be used for war-related purposes. The emo kid totally disregards everything he says, then says "I just care about Pokemon who win!!!" then uses a random escape rope to climb out.

I decide to fight the elder, just Embering his two Bellsprouts, then switching to Howl-Owl for a mirror match (kind of out-of-place considering his loyal subjects don't have any flying types). The trainer is defeated, and he gives me the Flash TM. I wanted to give it to Sprout, since all he has is Vine Whip, but I did it wrong because I'm amazing, so we're still stuck with just one move.
But, wait! Something is happening!

Bernard reaches Level 14 during the fight, and a cut-scene ensues. Bernard evolves into Quilava! We now have our first in-game evolution! So, after that, I use the escape rope to make my way out of the Sprout Tower, go to heal, then go into the what-looks-like-a-second-Pokemon-Center building, which is really Falkner's place. I don't bother talking to the guy who looks like Ozzie Osbourne (SHARON!!!), so I go onto a circular platform, and it goes up onto a pointlessly zigzaggy pathway. A whole two trainers guard Falkner.

But, wait. I only have three team members and two of them suck. So, I go through the Ruins of Alph over to Route 32 to find a fourth team member. While on Route 32, I finally find some grass. After about fourteen Rattatas, I finally stumble upon something new - a Level 6 Hoppip. Being the Pokemon genius that I am, I don't know much about Hoppip, so I just catch it anyway and it's my first female, so I name it Hillary (for once I actually had a boy name). It has Slash and something else, and neither are very useful. What a great catch! It's also Rash and often dozes off. I am an expert. So, I arrive back in Violet City and go back to Falkner's place.

After healing up to replenish some PP, I fight his first trainer. He has a Level 9 Spearow and a Level 6 Pidgey, both of which die within a hit from Ember. His second trainer? Nothing special either. Two Level 7 Pidgeys, both down in one hit from Ember. So, I go back to replenish some more PP, then go back to fight Falkner. I honestly thought I'd need 4 Pokemon to fight him?

He has a Pidgey and a Pidgeotto, and I didn't want to just linger on Ember forever, so I burn it with Ember until its left with less than half its HP, then switch to Howl-Owl to get in a few tackles. It has 1 HP, so I switch to Sprout and screw it over with a vine whip. Not my fault the freaking thing kept being stupid and using Sand attack. The Pidgeotto wasn't very hard to beat, either. I tried to give Hoppip a chance with Slash or Synthesis, but it just didn't want to do anything. I honsetly don't know what it will do. It hasn't done anything to any Pokemon. So I just kill it with an Ember than a last ditch effort Tackle with Bernard, and the Falkner is down.

Such a difficult fight! For a reward, I get the Roost TM (totally gonna use that), and the Zephyr Badge.

So, Falkner's dead to me now, so I leave his place, and Elm calls me. Oh, my God, that totally wasn't planned! HAAWHH! He tells me to pick up that myestewious egg from the nearest PokeMart, so I do. When I come out after a black-haired guy's speech about how he wiped his butt, an Asian lady is randomly sexually attracted to me now that I have an Egg. She tells me to take good care of "her" Egg. What the fudge? It's not your egg, you butthole.

Anyways, I head over to Route 32 and find a Miracle Seed ('twill come in handy with Sprout), and a bunch of Pokemon I don't want, such as Rattata. Because no place is complete without Rattata. However, I do come across... a Level 6 Mareep. Huh. Interesting. I decide to catch it, and I name it Mikey. It may be able to replace Hillary, since she's not doing jack-crap. So, I find a Pokemon Center and put Hillary in the PC. I find a Bullet Seed TM, and a trainer who has a male Nidoran, after he says he found some cool Pokemon in the grass... that's his only one. After I defeat him, I'm like, okay, I'm lookin' in the grass if there's a Nidoran here! There's not. Just Bellsprouts, Mareeps, and Rattatas. Maybe they only come out at night, so I might check.

Unable to find anything else interesting, I head into Union Cave, fight a Vulpix trainer (it's mean how they let a trainer have a SoulSilver exclusive, and they're probably gonna do that to me with Teddiursa as well), and get out into Azalea Town, the place Falkner recommended to go to.

Wait... am I forgetting something? Yes, I am! I caught a Level 6 Geodude and named him Dwayne, so he'll probably be replacing Mareep. In the cave, I also found a Sandshrew and an Onix. I'll come back for those later. Once I have my full party chosen, I'll start working on the Pokedex. Hopefully Geodude will be a bit more cooperative than my last two failures of team members.

There's some peoples from Team Rocket there, fighting some old men, but I don't care about that right now. All I care about is that there's a Pokemon Center and I need to heal.

So, I heal, then talk to a guy named... I think it was Ash or something? No, wait, it wasn't Ash - he's from the anime show. I dunno his name, I didn't care. Well, Team Rocket is apparently stealing all the Slowpokes in town and pushing 'em into a well and cutting off their tails for food (bit gruesome for an E-rated game, don'tcha think, Nintendo?), and he's all pissed about it, so he goes into the well to find them.

I remembered awhile back I got a call from my mom saying she had something that she bought with my money at the Pokemart, so I go there and pick up a Super Potion. Thanks, mom! While there, I also grab a few Pokeballs, then head over to the other side of Azalea.

There I look down into the mysterious Slowpoke Well...

That's the end of Episode 3! Next time, we'll be leveling up Geodude, Bellsprout, and Hoothoot, putting Mareep in the PC with Hoppip, and entering the Slowpoke Well to see what all this Team Rocket crap is about. And hopefully hatch this God-frosaken egg.

Game Time so far: 3 hrs, 22 mins
Thanks for reading!

Let's Play Pokémon HeartGold, Episode 2: A Sprout of Training

Day 2 - Saturday, March 27th 2010


Welcome back to Let's Play Pokemon HeartGold! In the last episode, we started off the game with our Cyndaquil (named Bernard), and caught a Hoothoot named Howl-Owl.

Also, crap. I looked at the version exclusives list again of HG/SS and found that HeartGold doesn't have Teddiursa - and I wanted to use one on my final team. Luckily, it has Porygon2, Growlithe, and a bunch of other stuff.

It was 11:30 at night on the night I posted Episode 1. I decided I would train Howl-Owl off-(not a)screen. I just leveled him up to Level 4, and get my butt handed to me by Pidgey. Bernard gets to Level 8, so I can be happy about that much. I fought some trainers on Routes 46 and 31, including some bug catchers. While cycling through the grass blades, I came across something I hadn't yet encountered - a Level 3 Bellsprout.

I had Bernard just sort of tackle it down to 4 HP, then caught it within one Pokeball! Team member acquired. I was planning on using a Grass type, more along the lines of Cacturne or Sunflora, but Bellsprout's good too. It was male, so I couldn't name it Bella (so far, females seem to run away from me), so I just went the cheap way and named it Sprout. I leveled it up to Level 6, but it still only had one move, and that was Vine Whip. It's not very effective, but luckily while training Sprout, the game kept being nice and giving me Sentrets.

After getting a few Apricorns, I saved the game and went to bed to re-fuel my IMAGINATION tanks. That name took so much thought.

Next morning (today), I woke up and got Howl-Owl to Level 6, and he learned Hypnosis! It worked for about 4 PP, then started missing every time. Huzzah. Oh, well. I go to the farther side of Route 31 and fight Bug Catcher Wade, who starts with two Level 2 Caterpies, then a Level 3 Weedle, then another Caterpie. I kill one with Hypnosis, then just vine whip the rest to death. Bernard came in for a Tackle and was poisoned by the Weedle, but luckily, on my way through the grass trying to find another Pokemon Center to heal, it said the poison wore off, and Bernard was left with a whopping 1 HP left!

Once I get through the grass that I can't walk two seconds in without encountering a Metapod (think I might come back for one later), I reach one of those "front door and back door and there are two people in it" buildings. Inside, Lyra and her stupid Marill find me, and she gives me the Vs. Recorder, then leaves. Oh, yeah, and during that trainer fight, Bernard got to Level 9.

So, I head out the other door of the building and I'm in... Violet City? I wasn't expecting to be here. I thought this would be much later in the game. But, I found what I was looking for there - a Pokemon Center. I heal up, and go into a random cabin. A guy in there asks if I want to trade Bellsprout for his Onix. While I'm sure an Onix will come in handy, I'll probably find one with the Pokewalker anyway, once I get that stuff set up. I may come back later if I ever need one.

I look for some grass in the area to see if I can acquire a fourth team member (might be nice to get a Poison type), but I do find a large building that looks like the fighting dojo from FireRed. Except, there are no Hitmonchops in this one. There's just old men. I realized I had entered the Sprout Tower. Again, wasn't expecting that to happen.

I'm stopped by a trainer there, and he has nothing but Level 3 Bellsprouts. I could've gone for a mirror match, but Bernard will be evolving at Level 14, so I figured to just keep him around. Plus, he looks all funky and shiz. Bernard, after defeating the trainer, grows to Level 10, then learns Ember. Sweet Jesus, yes! Ember will be VERY helpful.

So, I keep going through the Sprout Tower and fight a couple more oldies, find a Potion, a Paralyz Heal, an Antidote, and an X Accuracy, Bernard reaches Level 11, and I find out that all the trainers have Level 3 Bellsprouts, and that's it. And they all die to Ember in one hit, so I was able to blast through them all pretty quickly. Which means it should only be a matter of time until Ember starts missing like crazy, like with Hypnosis (I cannot wait until I find another sleep move).

I get to the top of the Sprout Tower after being randomly encountered by two Rattatas, and see a line of old men trainers going up a pathway to what I am assuming is the boss, whose name escapes me. I didn't wanna deal with that yet, and my DS's power was going dangerously low, so I figured now would be a good time to leave off. I went back to the Pokemon Center to restore my HP and PP, then saved the game.

That's the end of Episode 2! Stay tuned for the next episode, where we'll be doing some more stuff in Violet City, and hopefully beating the boss and evolving Bernard! See you then for that!

Game Time so far: 2 hrs, 11 mins
Thanks for reading!

Let's Play Pokémon HeartGold, Episode 1: The Generic-ness Begins!

Day 1 - Friday, March 26th 2010
WARNING: LOTS OF MISSPELLINGS AND JUNK IN THIS ONE THAT IWAS TOO LAZY TO FIX!


And so begins my adventure! It begins at the wonderful location of Target, where I buy the game on sale for $40 after waiting for twenty minutes for my mom to stop looking at shirts and give me my effing gift cards (not sure why I couldn't just hold 'em, but whatevers). During this time, we engage in a not-colorful and playful argument about whether SoulSilver or HeartGold is better. He says SS is, but I just got this one because the version exclusives are better, though I am upset that I'm giving up Meowth and Persian.

So, anyways, we get home from Target (and Kohl's), and I open up the game... except I don't. I wait for three hours because I'm dumb like that. So, at around eight 'o' clock, I start slashing at the thick government plastic that covers the game (funny how with video games it's government plastic and with lightbulbs it's thin cardboard. I guess because they're more urgent?), then read the mile-long Pokewalker instruction manual, all of which I totally disregard, since I won't be using it in my travels for today anyways.

So, anyways, I start up my DS and click on HeartGold, and the year-long intro begins. There's some weird bell tolls during the seven hundred copyright notices, then we watch some people battle it out with Gengars and Suicunes. Afterwards, the title screen FINALLY appears, and guess how you start the game? You touch Ho-oh with your stylus. Yeah, whatever sexual thought you had in your head, you're right.

So... after about fifteen minutes, the game starts. And we get to talk to... not Oak. We get to talk to Professor Elm instead. Hurrayz. So, Elm has a Marill (he's such an avid Pokemon collector, haawwh!). So, he wants to see us, and so I talk to my mommeh, and get my bag and my trainer card. My ID number is 63148. Not sure if this matters or not yet, but I'm soon we'll find out soon enough anyhow. I get an e-mail from my psycho friend Lyra (who ALSO has a Marill and was apparently playing hide and seek with it... ew), who just says she loves Pokemon or whatever. Then, I leave and I go over to Prof. Elm's place (isn't it ironic how his lab is RIGHT near my house?), and he gets an e-mail from Mr. Pokemon. He humps the computer, then says that he has some beautiful discovery, and that he can be found on Route 30 above Cherrygrove City.

He says I should bring a Pokemon with me, so I go over to the Pokemon refridgerator or whatever the crap it is, and I have to pick between a Totodile, Cyndaquil, and Chikorita. I pick Cyndaquil, and it's a male, so I name it Bernard, because I always thought Cyndaquil was very much related to St. Bernard. It was either that or Judas. It's a level 5 and has tackle and leer - pretty standard stuff. It's Quirky and "somewhat of a clown". Good enough. So, I actually start my adventure. An afro guy stops me in front of the door and gives me potions. And I get raped by a Marill on my way out. Yay.

I sign my trainer card with my full name (Tim Toohey), and I go over to some chick, thinking she'll be of some importance. Nope, she just says, "I like your bag!" Avoiding her stupidity and the fact that Elm said "People catch Pokemon in Pokeballs these days" ("these days"? like, since the 90's?), I go over to my mommy, and I show her my "rare" Cyndaquil, and she gives me my Pokegear, which for right now only contains a tellyfone. "It's so wasy to make a phone call these days!" Mom says. Where have these people been the last two generations? So, I get out of mah hauz, and Elm comes out and gives me his tellyfone number, so he can call me when danger threats (or when he feels like hearing my voice).

On my way to Cherrygrove City, I bump into my first wild Pokemon encounter - a Level 3 Sentret. I use my generic Tackle once, then it criticals, and it faints. Hooray for stupid victory. I pass a random guy and think he'll most likely just give me a potion or something, but I don't wanna take the risk that he's a randomly-placed early game trainer, I ignore him. My second encounter is a Level 3 Pidgey. Even with Leer decreasing its accuracy, its Tackles do a buttload of damage. I'm left with 6 of my 18 HP, and the Pidgey faints. Though very damaged, Bernard reaches Level 6, and learns smokescreen - a defense-dropping move. After getting through the enormous patch of grass with only 6 HP, I realize there's a thingus to the right. It's... another effing potion! Hooray! Totally don't already have 5 of those or anything.

I go through a random place where people tell me nothing to see Route 46, but I'm easily intimidated by the oddly large amount of grass, so I go back and head to Cherrygrove. Once there, I'm stopped my a pedophi-- I mean, old man. Apparently, he can tell I'm a rookie trainer? So, he realizes I don't have the Running Shoes yet, so he says he will walk "as slow as possible", meaning he runs really fast, then stops for one second when the camera edge is too close to his gorgeous wrinkly old man face.

Apparently, his name is Guide Gent (who the poop names their kid Gent?), and he gives me a tour of Cherrygrove - the Pokemart, the Pokemon Center, his house, all that good stuff. He explains fishing and junk, then gives me his "still warm" running shoes. Nah, just kidding, they're brand-new... sort of. So, yayz, now I can run.He also gives me the Town Map, then I head up to Route 30, just north of Cherrygrove. I run through some grass and encounter a Caterpie and a Metapod, both of which I ignore, find another potion, and an antedote, then when I go near a house, some dude stops me and gives me the Apricorn Box, where I can store so many apricorns. That'll be useful in due time.

After sailing my way through the millions of Pidgeys and Metapods, I finally reach Mr. frigging Pokemon. Professor Oak is there, and he gives me the Mystery Egg! Owsum! Oak walks VERY SLOWLY around the table and gives me the Pokedex, and his tellyfone number. As I leave, Mr. Pokemon says to bring the Egg to Elm, who calls, gasps, then... dies? On my way out of Cherrygrove, I encounter an emo red-headed dude, who flips me off, then battles me with his Level 5 Totodile. We have a Leer/Tackle shenanigan fest, and I whoop his emo butt within a minute and he pushes me away and goes home to cut himself over his picture of Robert Pattinson. Apparently, I had his trainer card... somehow, so I SAW HIS NAME, HAAAWWWH!, and also, Bernard reaches Level 7 during the fight. I go to Elm's lab, and a cop is there, along with Lyra, and I tell him that the culprit of a missing Pokemon case is that red-headed dude, who I name Derrick (not sure why, just fits his picture). When the police officer and Lyra leave, I give the Mystery Egg to Elm, and he craps his pants after seeing it. He takes and humps it into his refridgerator, then he tells me to leave after I show him my high-tech encyclopedia.

I go outside, and Lyra stops me, and tells me about balls. Pokeballs, you pervert. She gives me an example by using her Marill (because EVERYONE has a Marill in this game), and she fights a Level 2 Rattata. She catches it with one of her 20 friggin' Pokeballs, and gives me 5 of 'em. Cheapskate.

So, I decide to put my bawlz to good use, so I find a Hoothoot in the grass. It's a Level 3, and seems to have a good move... thing, so I catch it and name it Howl-Owl (if it were a female, I would've named it Hedwig), because it sounds funny. It is Serious with "good endurance", which seem to be good qualities if he's gonna be helpful. It has tackle, growl, and foresight. Foresight has definitely been showing its usefulness to me with some of the Pokemon I fought in the grass, so I dunno how it's gonna pan out.

I figured at that point, I made a pretty decent amount of progress, so I decided to stop playing there and save my game.

That's the end of Episode 1! See ya next time for training Hoothoot, and maybe catching some other stuff!

Game Time so far: 0 hrs, 44 mins
Thanks for reading!

In Which I Further Explain the Pokemon Journal

I mentioned in yesterday's entry that I would be making a sort of blog journal of my first 30 days of playing one of the two new Pokemon games. I think I'm going with HeartGold, but I'm very tempted to get SoulSilver, because my favorite Let's Player is doing something similar (except he's actually doing the whole game), so I might be able to use his for reference of what's to come. While I'm sure there's already seventeen LPs of HeartGold and SoulSilver up on YouTube, I'm still gonna let other people decipher it for me.

I've asked people on Twitter and everything, and no one at school has played Pokemon in sixty-two and a half years, so I've gotten very little (no) responses. So, I'm still not sure.

Either way, I would like to start the journal blog thing on Saturday, since I am most likely getting these games tomorrow. I'll be posting the day AFTER I play, so even if Blogger says it's been posted on April 3rd, I'll put "Day something - April 2nd".

iN oThEr NeWs... I'd like to update here more often, even though the majority of the updates will be for the Pokemon games. There's a good chance that'll be dropped, since I'm an incomplete douche, but whatever. I do have something planned that I'd like to start in May, but I'm not sure if I'll be doing.

Until next time, see ya later!

Would You Like to Nickname Your Pokemon?

Why, yes, I would. Thank you very much.

I like games where you get to name stuff. That's one of the only reasons I can stand RPGs slightly more than the average non-Chrono Trigger player. One of the most famous RPGs of all-time is Pokemon. In fact, Pokemon is so popular, it's not underlined in red when I type this (but Chrono is).

The thing I think most people overlook about Pokemon games is the ability to nickname your Pokemon! I don't know about you, but that's my favorite part! Naming Pokemon is so much. It's a bit of relief in a game that's not all about creativity. In fact, I think I'll show some examples of Pokemon names I've used / want to use...

Sunflora - Molly, Daisy, or Violet
Magcargo - Gary
Squirtle - Fludd
Teddiursa - Winnie
Growlithe - Tigger
Shuppett - Peeves
Geodude - Dwayne
Politoad - HypnoToad
Venomoth - Luna
Meowth - Turbulence
Mr. Mime - Mimien, Peach
Raikou - Meowmix
Wooper - Upaaa

Gary is because Magcargo evolves from Slugma, which is a snail, and SpongeBob's pet snail is named Gary.
The ones for Sunflora are obvious, because they're flower-related names.
Fludd is what I named my Squirtle in Pokemon Diamond, the first Pokemon game I've ever played. The name just made sense to me.
Teddiursa is a teddy bear, and so is Winnie the Pooh, so therefore, Winnie.
Growlithe is Tigger. That's it.

All the other ones have stories behind them.

I'm not a big Pokemon fan, but I am a Pokemon fan. So much, I'd like to buy either HeartGold or SoulSilver this Friday. For those who are skeptics or just know these things, which one should I get? Like, which one is better?

Either way, on both my website (www.timothytoohey.webs.com) and here, I'd like to post a 30-day Blog of my HeartGold and/or SoulSilver adventures, whichever one I get! Just the first 30 days. I think it'd be fun and interesting to see.

So, thanks for reading this Blog, and if you like, send me some funny Pokemon names. I may use them in my 30-day Blog!

In Which Information About the Video Quiz Is Revealed

Back in January, I talked about the Super Mario Sunshine video quiz, a thing I'm making similar to the Mario 64 video quiz on GameFAQs, except with... Mario Sunshine, of course. Well, I've made some task ideas. Actually, a lot of them. But I shan't reveal any.

There are 10 levels to the quiz - Biancoo Hills, Ricco Harbor, Gelato Beach, Pinna Park, Sirena Beach, Noki Bay, Pianta Village, Delfino Airstrip, Delfino Plaza, and Corona Mountain - in that order.

First, let me explain the intricacies of the quiz. Bianco Hills has 6 tasks, Ricco Harbor has 10, Gelato Beach has 12, Pinna Park has 9, Sirena Beach has 15, Noki Bay has 13, Pianta Village has 7, Delfino Airstrip has 4, Delfino Plaza has 20, and Corona Mountain has the Finals - 3 tasks, worth 1,000 points each.

The Finals are deviously challenging, and some other tasks require you to do some pretty insane stuff. For instance, in Pinna Park, you must do the Red Coins of the Pirate Ship task - but you can't get hurt by anything except for falls. Another is in Noki Bay where you must get all the coins in the Red Coin Fish in less than two break-aparts.

There are a few that are pretty easy. Such as collect five coins in Mission 1 of Pianta Village in less than 15 seconds. Or in Delfino Plaza where you must simply squirt all the birds (not including the gold bird on the island).

So, it should be interesting. I wanna start getting word out around April, so I hope I can work some stuff out soon.

Until then, see ya next time for another Gaming Blog!

In Which I Return

Okay, I've been gone for awhile, and for no particular reason, too, and I kinda feel bad about it. Though, in the few weeks I have been gone, I will announce that I do have some crap I'd like to talk about, and I wanna try and update at least every other day for the next week or two.

So, like with my website, updates here might be a bit sporatic, but I will try and do my best to post interesting things. Until then, thanks!