Since Pokémon Black and White 2 releases this weekend in Japan, I would like to share some experiences I have with the franchise in regards to the games. Obviously, Pokémon up to this day has a big influence on my life as it got me into playing more video games and watching anime. (Image Source)
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pokemon
Review: Pokémon White
For a long time, Pokémon has been one of the most influential franchises that got me interested in Anime. Ever since I played Pokémon Blue back in the late 90s, the games have refined themselves during the years.
After reviewing Pokemon HeartGold nearly a year ago, Pokémon Black and White, the fifth generation of Pokémon were released two months ago bringing stunning graphics, eye catching battle animations, new game mechanics, Pokémon and story. Since I played over 200 hours of Pokémon White, I felt that it’s finally time to share my thoughts about the game overall. (Image Source)
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I’m Kyubey the Espeon… Please make a Contract with Me!
Hi, my name Kyubey. I am a very special Espeon with the power to grant girl’s wishes in exchange of becoming a Puella Magi. In the past, some people tried to prevent me from doing my job. To prevent that from happening, I have reincarnated myself in the Pokémon World when Kotomi, another Espeon gave birth to me as an Eevee.
Since I have finally evolved into Espeon, I am going to continue my job like I did in the other world and make more contracts. I know there are many grief seeds and witches in the Pokémon World, so I need your help. Please make a contract with me and I’ll grant you any wish that you desire like getting any legendary you want, becoming the most powerful trainer, etcetera. Just fill out the contract below and your wish will be granted instantly!
Name:
Gender:
Desired Magical Powers:
Appearance:
Wish:
By signing this contract with Kyubey, you are agreeing to become a magical girl/boy to fight witches to purify your Soul Gem. Once you gain magical powers, you may not revert back to your previous form. If the contract is broken, severe consequences will follow and Kyubey will not be held responsible.
Signature: x___________________________
Good Luck… and hopefully Homura-chan won’t oppose me. ◕ ‿‿ ◕
Homura-chan’s Pokemon Adventure – Part VI
After defeating Brycen, I have learned that Team Plasma has infiltrated Dragonspiral Tower… In addition, I challenge the last gym leader of the Unova League, Iris. (Image Source)
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Homura-chan’s Pokemon Adventure – Part V
Homura-chan’s Pokemon Adventure – Part IV
In the fourth part of Homura’s Pokémon Adventure, I venture through the Chargestone Cave to arrive at Mistralton City. From there I have go up to the tower to ring a bell before challenging the Gym Leader, Skyla. (Image Source)
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Names You Know in Anime – Pokemon White Nickname Analysis – Part I
Some people in the aniblogosphre nickname the Pokémon after favorite Anime Characters, friends, etc. I have started to nickname some of the Pokémon in Pokémon Platinum, but not on a large scale until HeartGold. Since I have created my preliminary team in Pokemon White, I may as well explain some of the nicknames I picked for some of the Pokémon I use for competitive battling. (Image Source)
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Homura-chan’s Pokemon Adventure – Part III
Homura’s Pokemon Adventure – Part 2 – 2nd and 3rd Gym Leaders and Plasma Strikes Again
Since I have completed the game, the Let’s Play will go on because I have the stuff captured on my iPhone.
In the second part of Homura’s adventure to become a Pokémon Master, I am heading to Nacrene City and then Castelia City to challenge the Gym Leaders to earn the badges. Meanwhile, Team Plasma is feeling a bit hypocritical when they kick a particular Pokémon along with the usual activity of stealing other people’s Pokémon. (Image Source)
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Homura-chan’s Pokemon Adventure (Pokemon White) – Part 1
On March 6th, 2011, Gamefreak as released their fifth generation of Pokemon Games, Pokemon Black and White. Like I did in the past on Shiori’s Diary, I’m going to do a Let’s Play in text form (with images and videos) up to the defeat of the Elite Four. Instead of using my personal blog, I will be posting it here since Pokémon is anime related after all and it could convince people to get the game who are on the fence… So, let’s get started! (Image Source)
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Pocket Monsters – Giratina and the Sky’s Bouquet Shaymin Movie Review
It’s been nearly three years since I last touched the Pokemon Anime and a lot have changed. However, I don’t intend to go back to watching Pokemon since I want to spend time watching good Anime. I felt that the Pokemon Anime was going into the pool of mediocrity because it took them several years to have the show in wide screen and there is so many filler episodes… It’s just as bad as the worst offender of filler episode, which I will not name.
I have been holding off this review since I was busy on other things like college and working on programming projects that I completely forgot about it. Since I have the time, I will review it in my view after watching several good (and bad) Anime.
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Review: Pokemon HeartGold
After three months and a few weeks, I have finally beaten Red, which people say that he is hard to beat. Well, I managed to beat him with minutes, so yeah… Since I completed pretty much everything in the main story, I will share my thoughts about Pokemon HeartGold.
Back when the original release of Pokemon Gold and Silver came out back when I was in 5th grade, I have played this game a lot. There was only 251 Pokemon back then and I also bought Pokemon Stadium 2 for a bit more fun with 3D battling. Fast forward to today when I am a college student now finished Diamond and Platinum, when the remakes of Gold and Silver was revealed, I wanted to play it. After the English release back in March, I have started playing it and the nostalgia factor came back.
People who have played this game will notice that most of the story and the maps are pretty much the same, with minor differences. These differences included updated mechanics since the Second Generation (basically, it has everything from Diamond/Pearl/Platinum), berry trees replaced with Apricorn trees (since the 4th Generation has a different berry system compared to the 2nd generation), Battle Frontier, Pokéathlon (essentially a sports version of the Pokemon Contests), Revival of the Safari Zone and other changes to music and graphics. If you compare the graphics to D/P/Pt to HG/SS, the newer remakes look slightly better. There are some minor changes to the story to take advantage of the new graphics and such.
If you played Pokemon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum, you will immediately notice that the menu is moved to the touchscreen since there is no Poketch. This allows you to easily access your Pokedex, Pokemon list, Items, Save, etc. Another thing I liked is that you can lock on to using the running shoes without needing to hold B down. Another improvement is that you can set two key items for easy access. This made it easy to use the fishing rod without needing to unset the other item. The PokeGear is pretty much the same, except that you can store an unlimited amount of phone numbers. However, this can be annoying since your PokeGear will keep ringing at random moments after you get out of a building, defeat a Pokemon/Trainer, etc.
Like in Pokemon Yellow where you have Pikachu following you, in HG/SS, you can have any Pokemon walk with you, as long its on the first slot of the Party. This is where you can find accessories for the dress up mini game like in D/P/Pt and check your mood of your Pokemon.
The game is pretty easy since I used my other game to Effort Value train the Pokemon and send them back to the game. I managed to beat the first 8 Gym Leaders in 21 hrs and 47 mins, beat the next 8 Gym Leaders in several hours later. However, when it was time to train for Red, training got very frustrating. Compared to D/P/Pt, HG/SS does not have a VS Seeker. This meant that you had to rely on trainers that call you, weekly rematches of Gym Leaders depending on the day and the Elite Four. The lack of a VS Seeker is the biggest flaw in this game because they push the PokeGear so much for rematches that it becomes a gimmick. I liked it when I can battle trainers on demand since I can level up quicker and go on. Because of this, I had to resort to trading the Pokemon to my older games, train them and send them back. I even battled the Elite Four (I deposited my money before doing this) until I lose and I do it again over and over again. Eventually I managed to beat the stronger Elite Four’s Pokemon 6 times because my Pokemon were already on Level 70s to 90s. If I had the VS Seeker, it would have been done in no time and I see this as a flaw in the game. If HeartGold/SoulSilver is the only game you have, be ready for a long level grinding up to Level 82 or higher because if its below level 82, you won’t stand a chance against Red.
Talking about Red, he was incredibly easy (Beaten on the first try after 74 hours of playtime). I beaten his whole team with these Pokemon:
- Kyou (f) – Dragonite at Level 91 – Adamant Nature
- Kotomi (f) – Espeon at Level 83 – Timid Nature
- Nagisa (f) – Milotic at Level 83 – Bold Nature
- Sayuri (f) – Leafeon at Level 75 – Jolly Nature
- Pidgey (Fly) and Geodude (Rock Climb) are used as decoy Pokemon and HM Moves
If you properly Effort Value train the Pokemon along with the right natures, you will stand a better change against Red’s Pokemon since I highly doubt Red’s Pokemon are EV trained.
Another flaw with the international release is that they replaced the slot machines with this incredibly hard Voltorb Flip. Basically, it’s a game of chance that involves no risk. I don’t really care about the games, but they took away the ability to buy coins. So, the only way to get coins is beating Voltorb Flip, which I found very frustrating, even with a helper. Eventually I gave up and bought the items in Platinum. Slot Machines replaced with Voltorb Flip was simply the worst change they made in the whole game.
Now to the positive aspects of the game… The Pokéathlon is the Sports version of the Pokemon Contest. There are five game modes (Speed, Power, Skill, Stamina and Jump) depending on each performance stat. You can raise these stats by blending Apricorns and giving the Apricorn shake to the Pokemon. Honestly, I only tried Speed and Jump since they are the easiest out of the five, but haven’t tried out the other three. They consist of three events that takes advantage of the touch screen on the DS. The games are okay, but they take some time getting use to. Once you get use to these events, they will go pretty easy.
If you notice, the cartage of the game is different from the others. This is because it contains an infrared sensor used by the PokeWalker. PokeWalker, as the name suggests allows you to send a Pokemon to level up by one and raise happiness. You can find items, catch Pokemon and send watts back to your game. Basically, the PokeWalker is like those Pokemon Pikachu gigapets that you walk around with and earn watts. I’m guessing that Nintendo and the creator of Pokemon wanted to get people off their butts and start exercising. However, there are always going to be some cheaters… On Youtube, I saw people taping their PokeWalkers to phonographs and fans. They even go so far to build a MindStorm device to have it shake the PokeWalker. That pretty much defeats the whole purpose of the PokeWalker and its pretty sad.
For me, I have used the PokeWalker a few times by bring it to college to generate watts. Ever since the Spring Semester was over, the PokeWalker is sitting by my bedside collecting dust. I rarely use it nowadays since I have a lot of stuff I bring with me when I go out.
Lastly, there are a few mechanics changes to this game. Breeding for Individual Values is a lot easier since you can just have a Pokemon hold a single-stat EV enhancing item and keep the IV of that Pokemon. Like with Platinum, additional moves that was previously unavailable for various Pokemon is now available. This allows for better move set building.
Overall, HeartGold is a great remake of the original games. There were some flaws, but I enjoyed the nostalgia factor and the pretty graphics and music. If you played Pokemon in the past or still like it, I recommend this game… Although there were a few things that bothered me about the game, it didn’t impact my enjoyment of the whole game and I will continue to play it as long as I can.
One last thing… If you want to do any online activities with my Pokemon Game, my friend code 0818 6384 1156. If you want to do a Battle, I only do Level 100 Singles with no Ubers and Hax Items. Contact me via my XMPP address or Twitter (as a Direct Message) if you want to arrange a battle (See “About chikorita157″ page for my contact information). I’m usually online throughout the summer at 10 AM to 11 PM Eastern Time.
Note: Fanart used in this post is made by わっこのやろう
Pokemon Heart Gold First Impressions
Well, yes, it’s another game that is terribly addictive. This is a remake of the Pokemon Gold and Silver games that came out nearly 10 years ago on the Gameboy Color. I remembered playing this on the Gameboy Color and well, nostalgia will hit again once I start playing this remake on my Nintendo DSi.
Alot have changed during the last 10 years with game mechanics and also the capabilities the Nintendo system had. Back in 2000 with the Gameboy Color, it could only show a certain amount of colors and there was no wireless features except the IR censor on the top of the system, but now with the Nintendo DS or the DSi, alot of change, thus more features were added.
Inside the box reveals instructions for the PokeWalker, which allows you to send a Pokemon over for something and use it without needing a DS and well, the game that comes in a separate package from the box.
Inside the game package is obviously the game and instruction manuals. So that is pretty much it. Anyways, if you are interested in my progress, I will write entries over at my Sideblog, Shiori’s Diary with some screenshots. For now, I’m just going to get started with the game, so I will post a little later. :p
Anyways, what do you think about the remakes?
Also, I will still continue to blog about Anime despite playing this game…