Topic: I sorta want the new Pokemon game.

[idolminds]

I don't really know why, but I do. Though this time there are bigger differences between versions than just some pokemon can only be caught in certain versions. There's an entire area in the games that are different from each other.

I've never beat a pokemon game, and I played most of them in emulators. I did buy Blue when it came out (15 years ago...hello old age). But for the first bunch of hours I have a lot of fun with them.

Also, there's this:

[iPPi]

I've never played a Pokemon game before.

[Ghandi]

The last time I played a Pokemon game I was 12..that was 12 years ago. It was fun, we had the original game boys and my friends and I would play when our parents sent us outside to get exercise. heh.

[idolminds]

Hmmm, maybe I'll pass. They already have some special event going on for the game where you can catch a certain pokemon. It runs through April, and its the only way to catch the thing. It wont appear anywhere else in the game. For a game where you "gotta catch em all" making some of them impossible to catch outside of a time-limited event is kinda shitty.

[sirean_syan]

I don't think that's entirely new to Pokemon. Even the the first game there was that special Mew character that you could only get by connecting to Nintendo. I don't remember the details anymore as it's been something like a decade.

Anyway, I've sorta felt the same way about the new Pokemon as well (I think I mentioned this randomly on IRC one day). I played through the very first Red/Blue game, but haven't really paid attention to the series since. It would be fun to see it all again, even if there isn't much of an upgrade.

[idolminds]

I found an image that lists some of the differences between versions. I think I'd pick White.

[W7RE]

I bought Pokemon blue back when it came out, but only got an hour or two in before I was bored. Then I bought the next one when it came out, but still only managed to get an hour or so in. Then I realized I just don't care for the series enough.

[sirean_syan]

I haven't been that embarrassed to walk into a store and buy a game in a long time.

Now to charge the old DS.

[idolminds]

Did you lie and say "Its for my nephew"?

[gpw11]

I'm very tempted as well.

[K-man]

I can say that for the first time ever my interest is piqued as well.

I looked in the used GB/GBA section at Gamestop yesterday and was floored by the variations of this game that have been released over the years.  I mean what the hell.

[idolminds]

Yeah, there are a lot of versions. They always release in pairs so right there its doubled. Then for each generation they will do a sort of "Best of" release (eg, Diamond/Pearl and then a Platinum thats sort of a mix of the two), and they've done a bunch of remakes of previous entries in the series.

[gpw11]

Well, they sell like hotcakes and they do always seem to do a pretty good job.  I tried playing one of the first ones on my girlfriend's brother's gameboy when I was younger and couldn't get into it...but that was right at the start of my gaming "career" so there might be more to appreciate now.  Well, that and they aren't in monochrome anymore.

[idolminds]

Due to the censor that prevents Pokémon with offensive nicknames being traded on the GTS, an English language Cofagrigus cannot be traded without a nickname.

[sirean_syan]

Am I missing the joke on that one? I'm sounding it out in my head and not hearing anything bad.

Anywho, I put some time into the game over the weekend and enjoying it. My memory of the original game is really fuzzy, but this is hitting the same notes. I sort of forgot how the game really breaks down into various grindfest while you prepare for each training milestone, but I also think that's what I wanted going in. There have been some complaints about this new generation of Pokemon, especially since you don't get to see any of the old ones in the normal games, but I don't understand that. Most of what I've seen has been fun and generally fulfilled the archetypes created by the original. I think it's a case of people just not wanting something to replace the batch that they've grown completely attached to over the past decade.

The only real complaint I have is how the game handles the passage of time. That is, the night/day and season cycles. Night and day are fairly reflective of the real time night and day while seasons change every month of real time play. I suspect that I will more or less see just nights and one or two seasons before I decide I'm done with the game. Most games should compress time and not tied to reality so much these days so you can actually experience these shifts. Something like having a day last for 2-4 hours and seasons changing every week or so would be awesome. This is especially true when catching certain Pokemon requires hunting at specific times.

There's a lot of new (or at least new to me) peripheral stuff in terms of internet/network play and it's convoluted enough that I can't keep it all straight in my head and honestly wonder how the kids that supposedly devourer these games do. As of now, it seems like there are four or five different way to connect to other players via local wifi or the internet, but they all serve different purposes. I'm not interested in any of that stuff, so it's not a big deal to me, but it seems pretty typical Nintendo to turn any sort of internet stuff into a clusterfuck.

[idolminds]

Cofagrigus

I guess they don't have a whitelist.

So, I was a bad guy and have been playing an acquired copy. I wasn't ready to spend the money being so unsure about it. I passed the second gym and...I think I'm pretty much done. The grind and repetition just really gets to me. I don't know why I expect anything different because every pokemon game is like this. I like the idea of running around and collecting new critters but the rest of it...*sigh*

One thing I do like is that some of grinding has been reduced due to two features. First, earned XP is split between all pokemon in a battle. This is normal, but now the lowest level pokemon gets the lions share of the XP. Second, there is a special pokemon that appears in rustling grass that gives a lot of XP when defeated.

So you put your low level pokemon to come out first, run near some grass until it rustles, start the fight and switch to a strong pokemon to kick ass. I leveled this one bird pokemon from 9 to 16 in two fights.

Its a step in the right direction, but I think I'm already played out.

[K-man]

Cofagrigus

That's gay.

[sirean_syan]

... really? Are we that far gone? I'm actually kinda happy I didn't see that.

But yeah, I'm kinda in the mood for a grindy game right now. I suppose I probably should have given Disgea the play it deserves, but Pokemon is easier to deal with right now.

[idolminds]

I can see trying to stop someone from trying to trade his pokemon named "Urafag". I mean, its Nintendo and Pokemon, they have to be extra careful about stuff like that. If they had a whitelist for official pokemon names then it wouldn't be a big deal.

I wonder how many people keep the custom names after trades anyway. Nintendo could easily avoid the problem entirely by making all trades use the default names.

[idolminds]