Pokemon Go!

Okay, I know I said that Monday’s/the early week was going to be a time for writing posts, but Monsieur Chuck Wendig didn’t post up a fiction challenge last week, I sort of have an idea for a writing related post but it’s not all that developed, and yet another hurdle has come up as a time sink, in the form of the explosively popular new game Pokemon Go.

And considering I spent my A to Z challenge this year talking about all things Pokemon, I can’t not talk about the game now that it’s out. Well, sort of out in some places and unofficially obtainable in other places, yes I did in fact cave in but it’s Pokemon! How could I not?

For those of you that haven’t heard or do not know, Pokemon Go is a AR (Augmented Reality) game played through a mobile device such a phone or a tablet. It uses real-world information such a location and your camera to superimpose Pokemon into the real world, at which point you can walk around and catch the Pokemon, thus working towards completing your Pokedex. Pretty simple Pokemon premise – catch them all – finally meets the real world.

Of course, it is a little different to the games that are played on the DS and the like, mainly because it has to be, the mechanics of those games don’t work so well for the mechanics of walking around holding your phone. But the way they have implemented it is amazing.

So, you load up your game, you customise your avatar and you choose a username. Nice, but make sure it’s what you want because there’s no way to change this at a later date (wish I had known that at the time, I’d like to change my avatars clothing, but, hey, not a big thing). It then works out where you are, puts you down in the real world, and three Pokemon spawn up around you. You might have guessed – Squirtle, Bulbasaur and Charmander. (As a side note, I have since learned that you can get Pikachu as your starting Pokemon. If you run away, as in physically run away through the real world, from these three, then they catch up to you. Do this three of four times, and eventually a Pikachu will spawn alongside the three of them. Pretty cool!). The game teaches you how to catch a Pokemon, gives you a bunch of Pokeballs, and then away you go!

Second important thing – Pokestops. These are real world things which are flagged up in the game as point on the map. When you get near them, you can tap on them, and they’ll give you items. Pokeballs, Greatballs (I levelled up enough, finally!) potions, Razz Berries and the like, this is how you get your items (you can also buy them for real money, but mostly you should get enough items by visiting these points) and they also give you a bit of XP to level up your Trainer Level. I think these are pretty cool, since they always tie into real world things, like murals, cool wall arts, plaques, interesting buildings and the like. There’s like a sentence which explains what it is, snippet local history as it were, but mostly I just get them for the items and the XP!

Levelling – you as the Trainer have a level. You get XP by catching pokemon, evolving pokemon, battling gyms and just generally playing the game. As you level up, you can bump into rarer and rarer Pokemon, and you get better items. I’ve just hit level 12 today, and I now have access to great balls. No idea yet if there is a cap or not, but the increase per level in now a flat rate, rather than increasing, so I only ever need 10,000 XP to level. At the moment at least.

Pokemon levelling is a bit different. Especially from the games. Rather than a level, every Pokemon has a CP rating – Combat Power. It will have a minimum and a maximum, and you can raise this up by feeding them dust and candy. Dust is generic, candy is specific to a Pokemon and it’s evolution chain. So Squirtle has Squirtle candy (Wartortle and Blastoise will also use Squirtle candy) and Caterpie has Caterpie candy. You get both of these by catching the Pokemon, 100 dust and 3 candies for each catch (candy will be appropriate to the pokemon you catch. Caught a Magikarp? 3 Magikarp candy obtained.) Evolving a pokemon is also done with candy. Depending on how rare the Pokemon is, and what stage in the evolution chain, it may take 12, 25, 50 ore more candy to evolve them. The most I’ve seen is Magikarp to Gyarados, which takes 400 candy. Going to need a lot of those…

It’s a fairly simplified system (once you get used to it) but it works really well for the mobile game. Basically, it means that you just need to get out there and catch a lot of Pokemon, the same type of Pokemon, to get the evolutions and complete your Pokedex. Oh, and there are Eggs. Eggs also drop from Pokestops and you hatch them by walking. An Egg will need 2km, 5km or 10km to hatch it, so yes, I’ve been doing a lot of walking.

Last mechanical bit are gyms. There are three teams – Instinct Yellow, Valour Red and Mystic Blue, each symbolised by one of the three legendary birds Zapdos, Moltres and Articuno. These are for Gyms battles. Like Pokestops, Gyms are locations, and when you claim a gym, you claim in for your team. If you are in that team, you can bolster the gym by putting your Pokemon in there (up to the gym maximum, which you can increase through battling) and if you’re one of the two opposing teams, you battle it to try and knockout their Pokemon and take the Gym for yourself. It’s the part I’m least interested in, and I haven’t yet got the hang of the battling system, which is a mix of dodging, hitting and then a special move which for the life of me I can never get to trigger. But, it is fun, and my friends certainly like doing it, so I usually go around and shore up the other gyms for my team. Blue forever!

So, that’s the game explained in some detail. My thoughts and feelings? I love it. Like, really, really love it. That’s not to say there aren’t issues, the servers are a bit up and down, because the company didn’t expect it to be so popular so they’re doing a bit of firefighting at the moment, and the official release has been delayed in Europe (I, like a lot of people, am playing through a mirror) because of this. There are also some bugs, including one which means the Pokemon you are battling in the gym gets to 1HP, and then stays there, which is a driving factor behind me not really getting into the gym part of the game because it’s no fun to waste all your potions because of a bug.

The game is a huge drain on the battery life of the phone, and it doesn’t track things properly (like the distance walked for hatching eggs) when it’s in sleep mode, so you kind of have to keep it active the whole time. I can get about 2.5-3 hours from a fully charged phone, but I’ve already missed out on some nice Pokemon (there was a Scyther near the bus stop last night) because of a dead battery. But, this one I can fix by ordering a charger pack, which should be here sometime this week.

Now for the positives – I have done more walking in the past weekend than I can remember doing for a long time. Possible Empire/LRP levels of walking around, which is saying a lot. Motivation is high, and I really do want to get out of the house and go look for more Pokemon.

My friends are playing it as well, and as has already happened over the weekend, small group of us can get together and go walk around town, making it easier to track down Pokemon as we split off into different direction and then shout to each other when we find them. That, and we bump into other people, usually strangers who you’ve never met before, but who are also playing the game, and have a little chat. That rare pokemon is over there, caught anything nice today, gyms battles, I just feel like I had a bunch of small interactions that I wouldn’t have had without the game, and they’ve all been positive and it’s just great to feel that sense of community with other people.

And finally – I GET TO CATCH POKEMON! Me! My own pokedex! At the moment it’s only the first 150, but I hear there are plans to expand that out to the other generations at some points, trading will come in as well, and I have no idea what might be happening with the legendaries, but I can’t wait to see. In the meantime, I’ve got about 50 Pokemon in my Pokedex, including a Dratini! My next big thing is to get a Growlithe, and then evolve both of them up! I can’t wait to get back out there and catch more!

My Vulpix!

A to Z Reflection 2016 – Pokemon

Third year, complete! I kind of feel like a bit of an old hand at this, except for the mild panic I felt some days as I was like “Ah, haven’t done my post yet, need to do the letter for today!” which I have to admit happened on more than one day. But, I didn’t miss a day. And for some that doesn’t write or schedule their posts in advance, I’m doing them all on the day, that’s not bad going.

What do I love about this challenge? Meeting other bloggers mostly, going over, seeing what they’re up to, having them come visit me. I do have to admit that unfortunately I didn’t have as much time as I wanted to during the month, and I wasn’t checking other blogs as much as I should have been. So I’m probably going to be using the reflections list on the A to Z website to go out and find those others blogs, and keep visiting people even after April. Because blogs are an all year round thing, not just for April.

I should also mention, I had a wonderful thing going on with a writing group I’m part of. We had this mega thread for all of those participating in the A to Z challenge, and me and another writer would have this friendly competition to see who could post first each day! I got quite a few of them, but it was just this fun little interaction between us, and it really made my days good, especially since it would mean that I would try and write the posts earlier in the days, just to try and ‘win’ that letter.

Honestly, there aren’t many things that I don’t like about this competition. Sure, it’s a strain to try and keep up when you’re writing your posts on the day, and I don’t have a lot of free time all the time for things, but I love the challenge so much that it makes up for that, and I really like being able to stand back at the end of the month and say “I’ve completed this.” It is a challenge, and I like completing challenges.

My theme for the year – Pokemon. So many people seemed to click with it, and I was so happy to have people just dropping by, either with their own memories, or the fact that their children had played it, it was awesome to see. And it was really awesome for me to write as well. Sure, had to fudge some of the letters, but when don’t you? Although I was surprised that K turned out to be one of the harder letters this time round. And I’ve been playing a fair bit of Pokemon since I started these posts. That, and more information about Pokemon Sun and Moon has been released, I’m so excited!

So, in summary, I love my theme for this year, I really had fun engaging with people, I am going to continue to find new blogs after I make this post because there are tons of awesome blogs out there to be found, and I am totally signing up again next year!

Z – Zoroark: Master of Illusions

A high level of nostalgia means that this year my chosen theme for the 2016 A to Z challenge is Pokemon. Whether you yourself have a similar level of sentimentality or you’ve never really gotten into it, I hope that you enjoy this month of posts as I indulge myself.

Zoroark: Master of Illusions is the 13th Pokemon Movie, and for the last letter of the month, that is my topic – Pokemon Movies. Yes! Got through the alphabet!

A Pokemon movie is a feature length film, typically 90 minutes or more, which will generally feature Ash and his friends from the current anime series, and a legendary or rare Pokemon. There are also a number of shorts that focus on Pikachu and the adventures that he gets up to without Ash around, and they tend to be super cute Pokemon centred adventures. These are often shown before the movie.

Typically there is one film released every year, usually in July, and by this point, this means that has been at least one film every year since 1998. Which means that there are 19 movies in the running total ‘main’ series as it were:

• Pokemon: The First Movie – Mewtwo Strikes Back
• Pokemon The Movie 2000 – The Power of One
• Pokemon 3: The Movie – Spell of the Unown: Entei
• Pokemon 4ever – Celebi: Voice of the Forest
• Pokemon Heroes: Latios and Latias
• Pokemon: Jirachi: Wish Maker
• Pokemon: Destiny Deoxys
• Pokemon: Lucario and the Mystery of Mew
• Pokemon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea
• Pokemon: The Rise of Darkrai
• Pokemon: Giratine and the Sky Warrior
• Pokemon: Arceus and the Jewel of Life
• Pokemon – Zoroark: Master of Illusions
• Pokemon the Movie: White – Victini and Zekrom / Black – Victini and Reshiram
• Pokemon the Movie: Kyurem vs The Sword of Justice
• Pokemon the Movie: Genesect and The Legend Awakened
• Pokemon the Movie: Diancie and the Cocoon of Destruction
• Pokemon the Movie: Hoopa and the Clash of Ages
• M19 – Coming later this year

Typically, because they have more time, they can explore different and deeper topics then the ones they touch on in the anime, and usually it involves the battle between greedy people who want to use Pokemon for evil and their own gain, and people who are friends to Pokemon, such as Ash and his friends.

Outside of Japan, we haven’t had them released in the cinema’s since the early movie, but they are always released in Japan and they tend to do quite well over there. In the UK and United States, we tend to get them shown on cartoon channels and we can always buy them on DVD.

As well as movies, there have been four specials. These weren’t released in cinema’s, but they are a lot longer than the normal half hour episode of the anime, so they get their own special little category. Interestingly, only the two prefaced with ‘Pokemon:’ contain Ash and his friends, the other focus on different trainers. Origins tells the stories of Red and Green, the trainers from the original Red and Green games/anime/books.

• Pokemon: Mewtwo Returns
• The Legend of Thunder!
• Pokemon: The Mastermind of Mirage Pokemon
• Pokemon Origins

Basically, there are a lot of movies and move length features, and they are an excellent showcase of Pokemon, the trainers, the world, and those things that cartoons like to try and teach kids about. I just like seeing the legendary Pokemon getting up to hi-jinx. Mew & Mewtwo are my favourites, and turn up in more than one movie much to my delight.

 

Pokemon of the Day

Z is for Zekrom

Zekrom is a duel Dragon/Electric type Pokemon, is the game mascot of Pokemon White, and along with Reshiram and Kyurem is a member of the Tao legendary trio from the Unova region. This black bipedal Pokemon resembles a dragon or dinosaur, looking almost like it is covered in modern armour. It’s large, conical, spiked tail has been likened to an electricity generator, as it produce lightning for attacks and emits an anti-gravity field, allowing Zekrom to fly. It can cause thunderstorms and will generate them and then hide in the thunderclouds.

There are actually a surprising amount of Pokemon that begin with the letter Z, far more than X or Y, but I went with one of the legendaries because A) it’s a dragon, and B) I rather enjoy the black-white combination and that they swapped the colours of so you get the Black Legendary in White and the White Legendary in Black. That, and it ties in nicely to the theme of the day, because in the movies, they did something slightly odd. They released two movies, one featuring Zekrom, and one featuring Reshiram. The plot was the same, but the Pokemon got swapped over, and you could choose which movie to watch, which was pretty awesome.

 

Y – Yellow

A high level of nostalgia means that this year my chosen theme for the 2016 A to Z challenge is Pokemon. Whether you yourself have a similar level of sentimentality or you’ve never really gotten into it, I hope that you enjoy this month of posts as I indulge myself.

Pokemon Yellow was the special edition of the game in the first series of games. In the UK, this took the form of Red, Blue & Yellow, released as a trio of game, with Charizard, Blastoise, and of course Pikachu as the mascots.

You pretty much know this already, because it’s been almost impossible to talk about the various aspects of the Pokemon world without relating them to the games. But I am going to run through the games that have been out, because there have been a lot of them. Main generations games, that I have been familiarising you with are:

• Generation 1
  • Pokemon Red
  • Pokemon Blue (In Japan it was Green version)
  • Pokemon Yellow
• Generation 2
  • Pokemon Gold
  • Pokemon Silver
  • Pokemon Crystal
• Generation 3
  • Pokemon Ruby
  • Pokemon Sapphire
  • Pokemon Emerald
  • Pokemon Fire Red (Remake of Red)
  • Pokemon Leaf Green (Remake of Blue/Green)
• Generation 4
  • Pokemon Diamond
  • Pokemon Pearl
  • Pokemon Platinum
  • Pokemon Heart Gold (Remake of Silver)
  • Pokemon Soul Silver (Remake of Gold)
• Generation 5
  • Pokemon Black
  • Pokemon White
  • Pokemon Black 2
  • Pokemon White 2
• Generation 6
  • Pokemon X
  • Pokemon Y
  • Pokemon Omega Ruby (Remake of Ruby)
  • Pokemon Alpha Sapphire (Remake of Sapphire)
• Generation 7 – Coming late 2016
  • Pokemon Sun
  • Pokemon Moon

 

Of course, those are simply the main series of DS games (okay, so actually they started on the gameboy, then gameboy colour, then gameboy advanced, then DS, and now 3DS. It’s been going for a long time, there have been a fair few upgrades in technology since the start). There are actually quite a number of other Pokemon games out there, which I would like to give you a brief introduction to:

Pokemon Stadium & Pokemon Stadium 2 – These were on the N64, yeah, quite old, but I remember playing the original one a lot. Sure, there was an arena for Pokemon battles, but there were also cups to compete in, the Elite four to take on, you could import your Pokemon from Red/Blue/Yellow to fight, you could get rare Pokemon to export back into your game, you could fight Mewtwo after you did a bunch of other things. But mainly I remember the mini games. Themed around different Pokemon, I had huge fun with Lickitung’s all you could eat game, hoop-la with Ekans and Diglett, and Run Rattata Run! Massively fun, fairly simple games, which I could and did sink hours into.

Pokemon Snap – I can complete this game in six hours. How do I know this? Because I played it a heck of a lot, even during university, and I timed myself. It’s a Pokemon game where you play a photographer. you have to go around various Pokemon environments, take photos of Pokemon, sometimes trigger special events, and then Professor Oak will evaluate your photos and give you points for them. I was insanely fond of this game. And I am pretty sure that somewhere I still have the cartridge. At the end of the game you unlock a level with Mew in it, and it’s ridiculously hard to photograph, but it’s so pretty when you do!

Pokemon Colosseum – This was sort of like a cross between the Stadium style of battling, and the RPG of the games. You’re a trainer, there is a plot line (a fairly good one from what I recall) revolving around stopping the resident villainous team from stealing Pokemon’s hearts and minds. And them as well probably. It was an interesting game, because the battling style was a fair bit different (probably because it was on the gamecube) but also because you started with a pair of levelled Pokemon – Umbreon and Espeon! Can you see why I might have liked this game a lot? Pokemon XD was a follow up game which was very similar to this, which I never did get around to playing.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Series – Yeah, I can actually count this one as a series, because there are currently seven or so games that are called Mystery Dungeon. I just picked up the latest one Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon. The basic premise is that you yourself are a Pokemon, and you go an join up with the explorers guild. You then explore various dungeons, fighting Pokemon in a special system, recruiting more Pokemon, and finding treasure. They are super cool, playing as a Pokemon is awesome, and there’s a surprising amount of plot packed in there as well. I’m rather looking forward to playing this next one.

Pokewalker – A pedometer crossed with a simple Pokemon catching game. Walk around in real life, and you will walk around in the tiny little screen, and then you have a chance to find and catch wild Pokemon. Mainly I mention this because also coming out later this year is Pokemon Go! which is going to be a augmented reality game through your phone. Using the GPS software in your phone, run around the real world, and in the game, you will be running around tall grass trying to catch Pokemon. I am looking forward to it far more than I should, and I am very much going to be running all over town trying to catch Pokemon!

Of course, these are just the games that I choose to mention specifically. Pokemon has been around for a long time, and there are loads more games. The Ranger series, computerised versions of the cards games, puzzle games, pinball games, Pokemon Dash, which was this fun little racing game. However, this post is already running long, so I’ll leave you to explore extra titles as you want to 😛

 

Pokemon of the Day

Y is for Yveltal

Is a large Pokemon that contains both avian an draconic traits. It has a dark body, wings, and a bright red underside with branching black markings. It has five claws on each appendage, a beak like snout, and a large ruff around it’s neck. When the appensages are fully extended, the shape resembles the letter Y. It’s the counterpart legendary Pokemon to Xerneas, and has the power to absorb life energy. When it reaches the end of its lifespan, it will steal all the life energy of the living things around it and then transform into a cocoon to sleep for a millenia.

Again, since we’re fairly near those awkward, end of the alphabets letters, there isn’t much choice for Pokemon of the days, but I thought since we’d had Xerneas yesteday, it made sense to have Yveltal today as the other half of that equation. That, and he looks badass, Dark/Flying is a cool type combination, and he can sleep for 1,000 years, which is something I wish I could do sometimes.

X – XP

A high level of nostalgia means that this year my chosen theme for the 2016 A to Z challenge is Pokemon. Whether you yourself have a similar level of sentimentality or you’ve never really gotten into it, I hope that you enjoy this month of posts as I indulge myself.

XP! Or experience (possible even experience points) if you want to use the full word, but considering I need to hit all the letters, I don’t!

XP is very important in Pokemon. It’s how Pokemon get more powerful, causing them to level up, and levelling up can cause such things as evolution and learning new moves. How do you get XP? Mostly, it’s battling your Pokemon agaisnt another Pokemon, whether a trainer or wild. As long as your Pokemon does not faint, then it will gain XP, and there will generally be a little bar at the bottom that fills up, so you can tell how far it is until your Pokemon will hit that next level.

There are a whole bunch of complicated equations that determine how much XP a Pokemon will gain when it wins a battle. It depends on your level, the opponents level, and some items can effect this.

Levelling is effected by the experience group that the Pokemon falls into, of which there are six in the current generations: Slow, Medium Slow, Medium Fast, Fast, Erratic and Fluctuating. This basically describes how much XP a Pokemon needs to gain it’s next level. I won’t go too much into it, because it gets very maths based, and although I like maths and graphs, I know that a fair few people don’t 😛

The maximum level a Pokemon can achieve is level 100, after which point they just stop gaining XP. Personally, I don’t think I’ve ever gotten that high, because it takes a heck of a lot of work. The highest I ever got was high 80s, I think, and that was my Pikachu in Pokemon Yellow, because I used it for everything.

The last thing to mention is XP sharing. If you start the fight with one Pokemon, and then swap out halfway through, then as long niether of those Pokemon faint, they will split the XP of the fight between them. It’s a good way to fast level up slightly lower level Pokemon on your team, and I do it all the time. It gets a lot easier when you pick up an item called XP Share, which you give to a Pokemon to hold, and any battle that you fight, they will get a fraction of the XP from it. And the best part about this item, it that it doesn’t take any XP away from the Pokemon that actually does the fighting. I always look forward to getting it in the games.

 

Pokemon of the Day

X is for Xerneas

A blue and black stage-like Pokemon, it has eight sets of antlers, four extending from each side of its head. In active mode, these horns are pale gold in colour and the tips is adorned with a glowing colour, changing for each set of horns (orange, red, purple and blue). In neutral mode, the horns are a pale blue, matching the colour of it’s upper body. It has x shaped pupils, and markings on it’s bodys, along with it’s horns, form a large x shape. Xerneas is a legendary Pokemon which is said to have the power to share eternal life, denoted by the horns on its head shining in seven colours rather than four. At the end of its lifetime, it releases all of its life energy into all living things around it, transforms into a tree, and then sleeps for 1,000 years. It also has the power to create trees and forests, making it a very benevolent and powerful force for nature.

So there are only two Pokemon that begin with X – Xerneas and Xatu. But I’m actually impressed that there are Pokemon that begin with every letter of the alphabet, even if there’s only a couple. So, today, you get my pick of the two X’s, which is Xerneas, the mascot of Pokemon X, and one of three legendaries in generation 6. It’s kind of cool, it actually resembles the letter X, and it’s got this awesome forest god things going on. I didn’t use it much, but I like the fluff from it.

W – Walkthroughs

A high level of nostalgia means that this year my chosen theme for the 2016 A to Z challenge is Pokemon. Whether you yourself have a similar level of sentimentality or you’ve never really gotten into it, I hope that you enjoy this month of posts as I indulge myself.

Walkthroughs, sometimes called strategy guides, are used to help players get through games, giving them hints as to what to do next, what they can expect to find in certain places, and just basically providing a map to how to play the game. You can find them in print, or online, because every thing can be online these days, and actually, quite often, the print version are produced by the people who produce the game (often marked as ‘Official’ guides).

Does Pokemon have walkthroughs? Of course it does. And actually, I mostly choose the title today, so that I can show you one of my prized possessions – a walkthrough guide to Red, Blue, but mostly, Yellow:

This is more me showing off a cool thing and finding something for an awkward letter in the process 😛

 

Pokemon of the Day

W is for Wooper

Wooper is a duel Water/Ground type Pokemon that has a blue body, short legs, a tail, and frongs coming out from either side of it’s head. Male Woopers have a lot more branches in these gills than females do so it is easy to tell them apart. Wooper is a fairly dull-witted and slow Pokemon, possibly due to it living in cold water for most of its life. It will partially bury itself in mud at the bottom of a pond, lake or river when it sleeps and if it does come out onto land it will only do so on cold days, most in the evening, and searches for food along the banks. Whilst on land it coats its body in a slimy film to keep it moisturised, and this causes a shooting pain if touched with a bare hand.

Mostly I like Wooper because it’s modelled after axolotl, which are these super cool amphibian salamanders, which has those really cool gills on the side of their head. That, and this Pokemon closely resembles me of a morning. Completely derpy (my best friend calls me a derpy turtle, so, you know, derpy axolotl isn’t a millions miles off :P)

V – Victory Road

A high level of nostalgia means that this year my chosen theme for the 2016 A to Z challenge is Pokemon. Whether you yourself have a similar level of sentimentality or you’ve never really gotten into it, I hope that you enjoy this month of posts as I indulge myself.

Victory Road, on the path to victory! Although since it’s a cave most of the time, the road part is open to some interpretation 😛

Victory Road is one of the last parts of the games, and will only open up to you as a trainer after you have defeated the eight gym leaders of an area. Once you pass through into the cave, you will find a bunch of tough trainers to beat, and of course, a whole bunch of wild Pokemon that will jump out at you for experience and catching. Also depending on precisely which game you are playing, your rival might show up for one final battle, depends if they’re the champion or not, which changes between the games. It tend to be a bit of a long journey, and you have to rely on the items in your bag, so it’s actually rather good preparation for the Elite Four, which is what you will encounter at the end of Victory Road.

The Elite Four are much like Gym Leaders. There are four of them, they tend to have a theme type of their Pokemon team, and they are very, very tough to beat. You have to have all eight badges, so these guys are even tougher than the gym leaders, and you will face them one after another with no chance to go back to a Pokemon centre in between, so you better have a lot of medicine items on you. Oh, and the Elite Four will use healing items as well, it’s super annoying.

Kanto and Johto are unusual in that they share their Victory Road and Elite Four between the two regions, although it doesn’t matter if you have the eight Kanto gyms badges or the eight Johto badges, as long as you have eight badges out of the region, you can go challenge them. Hoenn, Sinnoh, Unova and Kalos all have their own Pokemon Leagues.

Taking the last Elite Four (eee, new Elite Four in Sun/Moon!) from Kalos as our example you had:

• Malva, Fire Type
• Siebold, Water Type
• Wikstrom, Steel Type
• Drasna, Dragon Type

They were some very cool fights, with epic rooms themed around the type in question. The dragon room for instance has a huge stone dragon with wings embedded into the walls, and the wings unfurl as you come into the room. Very over the top cool.

And then, once you get passed these trainers, you can go take on the Champion. Fun fact, the champion is the only trainer (apart from your rival, sometimes, in some games) who will have a team of six Pokemon? Even the Elite Four trainers have four or five.

In Kalos the Champion is Diantha, who is not only an actress, but also a very powerful trainer. I liked her, mainly because she trades you a Ralts which is holding the mega stone for Gardevoire, which as you should know is my absolute favourite Pokemon.

 

Pokemon of the Day

V is for Vivillon

Vivillon is a butterfly like Pokemon, thought to be related to Butterfree, with an elliptical shaped body in different shades of grey, and segmented wings that come in a variety of patterns. It has back legs and hands (but no arms) and two long antenna coming out of it’s head.  It is capable of many dust and powder attacks, and has been know to calm the fighting spirit of many Pokemon.

Had a bit of trouble choosing today’s Pokemon. Not because there are a lack of Pokemon, but because most of the Pokemon I would have chosen have already been covered in some form or another by others letters. Vulpix was covered under N – Ninetails. Venasaur was covered under I – Ivysaur. Vaporeon was another choice, except that I’ve already done Eevee, Espeon and Umbreon from the Eeveelutions. So the Pokemon I chose today isn’t a favourite per say, but it is really cool for a particular reason.

The picture you see above is the most common form of Vivillon (for someone like me who lives in the UK), the Meadow pattern. However, Vivillon is highly reflective of the environment that it lives in, and thus the pattern on the wings will change depending on where the Pokemon catcher in question lives in the real world. In total there are twenty known patterns of Vivillon wings, isn’t that cool? It’s a tiny catch them all within a much larger catch them all? So whilst Vivillon isn’t a Pokemon that I would save a spot for on my team most of the time, I do like trying to catch and trade as many different patterns as I can.

U – Undaunted

A high level of nostalgia means that this year my chosen theme for the 2016 A to Z challenge is Pokemon. Whether you yourself have a similar level of sentimentality or you’ve never really gotten into it, I hope that you enjoy this month of posts as I indulge myself.

Playing around with letters a bit today, as U was slightly awkward. U is for Undaunted, Undaunted is the third main expansion of the Pokemon Soul Silver and Heart Gold series of Pokemon Trading Cards, and that brings us to the actual topic today – The Pokemon Trading Card Game. Success!

Often abbreviated to Pokemon TCG, it’s a tabletop game that involves collecting, trading, and then playing cards against opponents, mostly 1 versus 1, much the same as you would in a Pokemon battle. All your favourite Pokemon are in there, and the rules are somewhat derived out of the rules of the games and anime, but obviously, as a card game, it has it’s own set of rules and mechanics, and is very, very different to the video games.

I’ll admit, I never really played much of the card game. I collected the cards, and somewhere around here I still have my original Team Rocket folder with most of my cards in them (my brother stole some of my shiny cards and then lot them, the fiend) so I’m more talking about the game today in an abstract, it exists and there are still loads of people who play it because they release new expansions for it fairly regularly. My local gaming store has a very active card game community, and they do indeed have players of Pokemon. Quite a lot, if I remember the last time I spotted games happening.

So, with card games, you have your cards and you build a deck with 60 cards in it. There are energy cards, which will be one of the Pokemon types, Pokemon cards, and then trainer/items cards. The aim to to get your Pokemon out, evolve them up (potentially, depends on the Pokemon), power them up, and then hit your opponent and make all their Pokemon faint. You win when your opponent runs out of cards in their deck, take all six prize cards (ah ha! I remembered a thing, there are six prize cards you place to one side at the start of the game, and you get one when you knock out an opponents Pokemon), or when your opponent can’t field any more Pokemon. It’s probably more complicated than that, with rules for how you get Pokemon out, evolving them, attaching energy to power moves, but like I said, I haven’t played in forever, I was always more of a collector.

 

Pokemon of the Day

U is for Umbreon

Counterpart to Espeon, Umbreon is the Dark evolution of Eevee, who will evolve after attaining high friendship with Eevee and levelling up during the night. Or it can be exposed to a Moon Shard. It is a black furred mammalian Pokemon, with four legs and a bushy tail, but has yellow bands and circles around various parts of its legs, tail and ears. These markings will glow at night, along with its eyes, and will strike fear into anyone nearby. It hides in the darkness, setting ambushes for people and Pokemon, and will glow as it attacks. In the wild this Pokemon is very rare, and is much more commonly found in Urban areas under the care of people.

As I said with Espeon, Umbreon is one half of my favourite eeveelutions, and at the moment, it just about edges Espeon out, although that can definitely change depending on how I feel at given times. It’s Dark type, likes biting and attacking people, and is generally a bit sneaky. I love its demeanour, its connection to the moon, and how it looks. Definitely has a place on team, when I can get it to evolve that is, it’s a little tricky with the moon and sun timings.

 

T – Types

A high level of nostalgia means that this year my chosen theme for the 2016 A to Z challenge is Pokemon. Whether you yourself have a similar level of sentimentality or you’ve never really gotten into it, I hope that you enjoy this month of posts as I indulge myself.

Types. We’ve been mentioning them all month, it’s kind of hard not to when talking about Pokemon. But what is a type? A type is a class for Pokemon and their moves. Each type has three properties: types is is super effective against, types is is not very effective against, and types it is completely ineffective agaisnt.

Currently there are 18 types, and occasionally new ones are added with new generations (Generation 1 started with 15 types). Since Pokemon can either by single or dual type there are 324 different combinations, with 171 of those being unique (Dark-Flying and Flying-Dark are not unique, but are technically different). As of Generation 6, 133 of these combinations have been used for Pokemon.

Pokemon can have one or two types, but each move that a Pokemon uses will only have one type. There are no Psychic-Fire moves, although flavour text can give it attributes from two types. A Pokemon however does know four moves, and there is nothing saying that those moves need to have a common type between them. Of course, Pokemon will often learn moves that do share a type with it, because it doesn’t make much logical sense for a ground Pokemon to know an electric move.

So what these 18 types?

• Normal
• Fire
• Water
• Grass
• Electric
• Psychic
• Fighting
• Flying
• Poison
• Ground
• Rock
• Bug
• Ghost
• Ice
• Dragon
• Dark
• Steel
• Fairy

As mentioned in the Gyms post from earlier in the month, most Gym Leaders and Elite Four trainers are deigned with a type theme. Trainers like yourselves however, are free to choose what Pokemon you have in your team. Most people have a mix of types, because you are going to encounter lots of different types and it can help to type advantage the fights.

Ah, that phrase again, type advantage. What does that mean? It means that certain types are strong agaisnt other types, and will deal double damage. There is also the inverse, ineffective types, where half damage is dealt. And sometimes, there is even type match ups where one type cannot damage another type.

For example, take the starter Pokemon. You will have a fire type, a water type and grass type, and they make up a type advantage circle. Fire is strong agaisnt Grass, Grass is strong agaisnt Water, and Water is strong agaisnt Fire. It makes an amount of logical sense when you think about what the types are based off. But, there is a lovely table which summarises the information for you:

It’s not all that complicated: Find your Pokemon type on the left hand side, find the Pokemon type you are attacking on the top, and then look for the little box. Green is good, white is normal, red is bad, and black won’t work.

Personally I go for a mix. There are too many types to get all of them in a team, even if all your Pokemon double type, but you can get a good spread, and of course, you can have Pokemon in storage waiting for that battle you need them on. I might favour certain types, psychic and fire and dark spring to mind, but I don’t have a one type team. Thinking about White 2, which I am currently playing, I have a Grass type, Fighting Type, and Fire type, which is seeing me comfortably through most fights.

 

Pokemon of the Day

T is for Talonflame

Talonflame is an avian Pokemon that closely resembles a falcon, with red-orange plumage, a grey underbelly and black flecks. When battling, Talon flame will dive at its foes, up to speeds of 310 miles per hour, and will use this speed to attack with a devsating kick from its claws. As a fire type Pokemon, embers will sometimes shower down from its feathers as it soars through the sky.

Talonflame is a relatively new Pokemon, being Generation 6, so it’s only been in the X/Y and Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire games. It’s a final evolution Pokemon, and it’s basic form, Fletchling, reminded me of Pidgey, since it was a tiny bird Pokemon that you catch really early on in the game. However, for whatever reason, maybe because it reminded me of a friends (Tiny Robin Pokemon) or because I like fire types and a Fire/Flying type was a good addition to my team, I caught one, added it to my team, and then it kind of stayed there for the entire game, levelling up alongside my starter. And it was great, Talonflame was one of my favourites from the last game, and was quite good in numerous fights. That, and it looks like a falcon, which is awesome.

S – Starters

A high level of nostalgia means that this year my chosen theme for the 2016 A to Z challenge is Pokemon. Whether you yourself have a similar level of sentimentality or you’ve never really gotten into it, I hope that you enjoy this month of posts as I indulge myself.

Starter Pokemon! We’ve mentioned them loads, because, let’s face it, as soon as you start the game you need your starter Pokemon to start your journey with, because without a starter Pokemon, there is no start! And yes, that was a mild exercise in how many times I can get the word start into a sentence 😛

Starter Pokemon will always follow the same format (ignoring Pokemon Yellow, that was a special case to follow after the anime) – there will be three of them, they have a three Pokemon evolution chain, and there will be one Water type, one Fire Type and one Grass type, making a very nice type advantage circle.

In each generation, there are a new three Pokemon, and generally, most of the time, this Pokemon will stay with you throughout your Pokemon journey. I can’t think of a single time when I didn’t keep my starter on my team all the way through the game, although I know that some people do swap them out for others.

Generation 1 – Bulbasaur, Charmander, Squirtle

Generation 2 – Chikorita, Cyndaquil, Totodile

Generation 3 – Treecko, Torchic, Mudkip

Generation 4 – Turtwig, Chimchar, Piplup

Generation 5 – Snivy, Tepig, Oshawott

Generation 6 – Chespin, Fennekin, Froakie

 

As has been mentioned in previous posts, you normally get your starter Pokemon from the Professor of the region, right at the start of your journey, usually at the same time as your Pokedex. As soon as you get your first Pokemon, your rival then also picks their first Pokemon, the strong type against the one you chose, and you have a little battle.

In the anime, Ash starts of his Pokemon journey on a bad foot, and is late. So the three Pokemon that should have been there weren’t for him, all that Professor Oak had left was a Pikachu, which was a little grumpy, and didn’t like going inside its Pokeball. Of course, their relationship gets better, and Ash and Pikachu become fast friends.

One thing that is very different from the anime to the games, is that in the anime Ash almost always comes across the other starter Pokemon, and either he, or someone else travelling with him, will end up with the starters in their teams, at least for a little while. In the games, the starter Pokemon are exceedingly rare, and you can almost never catch them in the wild. In later games, you can get hold of the earlier starters, but even then, it’s hard, or you only get one of the three. The only guaranteed way to get all of them is to do some trading with other trainers, usually after breeding some eggs.

Considering your only get to make it once, choosing your starter Pokemon can be a very tricky choice!

 

 

Pokemon of the Day

S is for Swablu

Swablu is a flying Pokemon with a round, blue body, a wings that resemble fluffy white clouds. It does not appear to have a discernible neck, so it can appear like the Pokemon is nothing but a head with wings and attena, although it does have a tail and clawed feet attached to the round body. This Pokemon does not like dirty surroundings and will clean up with its cottony wings, and with then use freshwater springs and streams to wash in when it becomes dirty from cleaning. They live in large flocks in forested areas, but can be seen in towns as well, especially around the spring. It is a very friendly Pokemon, and will often perch on the head, resembling a fluffy hat.

Swablu is adorable, but mainly I like it because it evolves into Altaria, and Altaria is one of my absolute favourite Pokemon. Unfortunately, I like Arcanine just that little bit more, so A had to go to him.

Like Swablu, Altaria is a blue Pokemon with cloud like wings that surround its entire body. So much fluff surrounding an elegant, almost phoenix like body – she’s so pretty! It uses its wings to catch updrafts and gracefully soar through the sky, often singing on humming in soprano tones. This voice can induce a dreamy state in those who listen to it, but it hasn’t lost the affection for people it had as a Swablu, and will often give people it likes soft hugs with it’s cotton like wings.

I mean, come on, who wouldn’t like a graceful, singing, hugging Pokemon! That, and it’s Flying/Dragon type, has a mega evolution, and is just an all round awesome Pokemon. Altaria always has a spot on my team, as soon as I find it or a Swablu living in the wild!