Courtesy of Zero Punctuation, please see: A Review of Pokemon B&W

If you are not familiar with the reviews of Zero Punctuation, look him on youtube; he's totally excellent.

I only just discovered this particular review of our very own Pokemon. Let's watch shall we?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrEcN-9c3MA

By following the link, obviously...I don't have the technology to put a video up on here - maaaadneeeessss.

In Praise of Team Rocket

While I hate to endorse thuggery of any kind, I like my queens flaming, my tea hot and my thugs thuggy. As such, I would like to praise Team Rocket for one moment.

Ever since the trainer population became acquainted with Team Rocket in Mount Moon (you'll recall that they were trying to mug off some nerd and his fossils) it has been clear that Team Rocket have never been anything but thieves. Their aim is simple; steal powerful or rare Pokemon, gain power & fortune. A simple and realistic aim for a criminal organisation, carried out with clear efficiencey - here is the thing we want, let us take by force.

Fighting off Team Rocket again in Pokemon Fire Red is a refreshing experience. I'm tired of having to consider my stance when fighting criminals and terrorists, as I have had to do in all other Pokemon games. Team Magma & Aqua debating the benefits of the ocean and land and what good we humans really are. Team Plasma, an ideological group who forced me to question the very idea of capturing Pokemon and thus, whether or not I could really be allowed to play the game at all. It annoys me because it forced me out of the role of travelling Pokemon Trainer, who accidentally stumbled upon bullying and criminality [in the guise of Team Rocket] and instead forced me into the role of concerned campaigner. As a voiceless protagonist, I can't help but feel that words have been put in my mouth:

N: I don't believe Pokemon should be ruled by humans, blah blah blah - SO! I see you disagree! What's that? You say Pokemon and people are partners?
My Own Voiceless Thoughts: No, I didn't say anything, I just want to leave, where are the police?
N: Fine then! We shall battle to see who is right!
My Own Voiceless Thoughts: No, go away.
*battle music*

At least with Team Rocket, life was simple. I've stummbled upon a crime! They're dicking on this guy - I can't just stand by and ignore that, go Side-Kick [Primeape]Bring back Team Rocket. And a police force. I'm just a person, not a super-hero!

P.S. Looks like Team Rocket are blasting off again.

Let's Do This Again Sometime

It was a great idea to introduce a method of 're-battling' trainers early on in the Pokemon series. Its more effective and more interesting method of training your Pokemon up than fighting wild Pokemon, especially once you have defeated the Elite Four.

However, Game Freak have never truly settled on method of battling old opponents. The methods that have been used are:

-The VS Seeker
-The Cell Phone
-That...thing that says when people want to battle again.

The worst is the Cell Phone, introduced in Pokemon Gold & Silver. It means you have to idiotically go through everyone on the off chance that they might want to battle again and often they will never want to battle, but will offer you an insight into their mediocre life..."Zubats are scary!"..."I hate when my Mum makes me come in from battling"...or of course, the favourite, "I LOVE SHORTS".
The Cell Phone might as well not exist, although once a guy called me up on it and explained that Stomp is doubly as effective if used against a Pokemon that has used Minimize, which I think if very interesting.

The third one (which I can't remember the name of) worked ok, but it was very limited to just a few trainers and was very random and odd. It was introduced in Pokemon Sapphire & Ruby and it was just a machine with a list of some trainers and a pokeball would appear next to their name if they wanted to battle again.

Now...the VS Seeker is excellent. You can run alongside any trainer in the game and try it out. So you are in control and choose who to battle again and most of the time, the other trainers do want a rematch. There are no random, time-wasting calls and no lack of certainty. Also, your opponenets Pokemon slowly improve. The one downside is that it needs charging by walking so many steps in the game, but thats really no trouble and encourages further exploration or battling of wild Pokemon.

This was a pointless article but I needed to express my love of the VS Seeker and my desire to see it in all future Pokemon games. Needless to say that Pokemon Black & White messed up the whole thing. If Apple made a VS Seeker, it's the one thing of theirs that I would happily buy.

A Whirlwind Update in Kanto #1 (pics pending)

Apologies Pokefans [haha...pokefans...I'm slowly becoming an anime fan boy. A Faniboy. Ahem] Anyway, apologies Pokefans, for my lack of updates. Technical difficulties have resulted in my having no internet or laptop for some weeks.

But let's see what's happened in that time.

So your old pal Trainer Chaz has gone back to Kanto to gather his wits and I must say it's be lovely to breath in the refreshing air of Pallet Town once more. It beats Black City any day. I wandered into some tall grass with Mega-Blast, my Squirtle.

I walked through Viridian City and cleverly took a left to a patch of grass on Route 22 where I happened to be aware of some early rare Pokemon. I caught me a Mankey and called it Side-Kick, which I think you'll agree, is a rich play on words. It's a fighting Pokemon? Good, anyway, I then tried to go onwards to Viridian Forest, but every time I did so an old man tried to stop me and teach me how to catch Pokemon. Naturally the only way to stop him doing this was to run an errand for Professor Oak, so I ran a package down to him (yeah, you're welcome, maybe now you'll let me ride my bike indoors instead of popping into my head everytime).

Task done, I went on. I've adopted a policy of catching every Pokemon in an area before moving on, so I spent some time looking for a Pikachu, but neglected to put it in my squad because I happen to already have a pretty nifty Raichu called Zeno. God I'm cool.

So look, let's get to it; Brock. Brock didn't count on my Mankey being as deadly as it is awesome. A dangerous mistake to make Brock, because Mega-Blast and Side-Kick made short work of his Pokemon. Boulder badge in ma belly in ma belly.

Then it was on to Mount Moon. Caught a Jigglypuff and thought, yes, sure it's out there, but why not. The name is Love-Lost and it's just great.

Some guy tried to sell me a Majikarp outside Mount Moon, but I was onto his game. Nice try MATE, but I'm banking on a stranger giving me a fishing rod before the day is through.

There were some bozos in Mount Moon calling themselves Team Rocket. They were trying to bully a nerd into giving them one of his fossils. They presumed that I was going to do something about it and began to fight me. When I defeated them, the nerd gave me a fossil out of gratitude, which seemed odd, given that I was fighting so that he could keep them, sort of.
I noted also how nice it was to fight a group of terrorist criminals who only cared about blatant crime and crime alone, as opposed to battling with a group of idelogical, loon-bags.

I chose a dome fossil and came out of the mountain, having failed to catch a Geodude or Clefairy, so there goes that plan. Then I met two blokes who offered to teach my Pokemon how to Mega Punch and Mega Kick, which I took them up on, since these are bloody powerful moves to have with only one badge to your name.

Won on Nugget bridge and was offered the chance to join Team Rocket but declined. Met Bill and but he had somehow turned into a Pokemon. I helped him turn back. It was weird and disgusting. Then I went to back into Cerulean City to try and win a Cascade Badge. It was relatively challenging, but by this time Mega-Blast had learnt bite, which saw off Misty's Starmie which, as we all know, is a water and psychic Pokemon.

I won the Cascade Badge. As I left Cerulean City I had to cut through someones house. It had been broken into. While everyone was totally stumped, I found the criminal in the garden of the house and he decided to fight me with no provocation. I beat him, since he had the usual array of Rattatas and Koffings and Ekans. He returned the thing he stole, TM...18? Which was Dig. I went to return it to the house but the man said he no longer wanted it, which was weird, so I kept it.

Took an underground passage to Vermillion City, because the gate into Saffron City was blocked. From what I could understand, there was absolutely no problem other than the fact that the guard was thirsty. I wasn't sure why that meant I couldn't go through, but whatever. Anyway, I arrived at the Vermillion City Poke Center in one piece and a woman at the desk gave me a VS Seeker. I had no idea why she was handing out free electronics, but I accepted it because it's such a good tool.

Part Two coming relatively soonish.

Pokemon Trainer On Fire

Sorry all for the lack of posts. I have been in training deep in the mountains, contemplating what it means to be a Pokemon trainer, our relationship with Pokemon and what exactly would happen if I drank a Super Potion. I concluded that to be a Pokemon trainer is to act as a conduit between Pokemon and people, our relationship with Pokemon is one of mutual respect and friendship and also my HP increased by 50 points.

I also came to this conclusion. I'm afraid that Pokemon Black & White were...quite disappointing. I'd go so far as to say that they were...very disappointing? In fact they proved correct the people who claim that Pokemon Red & Blue were the only Pokemon games worth owning. Not true. Not true, at least, until this version. When it comes to the newest version of the videogame, it seems enough to stick a pair of eyes on a brush and call it Brushy. Design and gameplay went out the window and in its place Game Freak seem to have focused on linking the Pokemon community into what seems a poorly designed social network, loosely affiliated with Pokemon (entralinks, dream worlds, c-gears, etc). Perhaps it would have worked, had this been done via some other medium, but the wireless internet support for the Nintendo DS has only ever been as reliable or widespread as that of the Gamecube, which as we know, was virtually non-existent.

As such, the game suffered. The Pokemon journey of each game needs to be interpreted differently by everyone who encounters it. There was no naming of your rival or real decision making in Pokemon Black & White, it was all laid out in the form of a linear RPG. Pokemon was always technically an RPG, but to inflict such a stringent storyline on the player robbed the game of its heart. What we got was a game geared to draw new players into the rules & concept of the thing and in turn to peddle the DS-i to us. By making the game far better suited to the DS-i by limiting those playing it on a regular DS was a pretty shallow move. You'll notice that the same thing did not happen during the jump between GBA & original DS.

With that fact in mind, I started a new file on Pokemon Fire Red, a game catridge lost to me until I recently found it in a dark, dank, hole. Much was my celebration. And what better time to start a new Pokemon file than when travelling abroad?

So prepare yourself, ye who are all faithful to Pokemon, for now shall be the accounts of everything you ever heald dear. Trainer Chaz revisits Pokemon Fire Red. Press start.



Reader! Your very own POKEMON legend is about to unfold! A world of dreams and adventures with POKEMON awaits! Let's Go!

Not Another Bloody Big Mushroom

Why is the world stingey? If you'll recall, rare candies were the creme doo-di-doo creme, back in the days of Red & Blue. If you managed to work your way to a distant mountain peak, or had the cunning to look under an isolated looking shrub, then chances are that you got your just deserts - a rare candy.

Geezuz Christ, I mean, that shit rasies your Pokemon ONE WHOLE LEVEL! Think how much time that friggin' saves! When you're Pokemon is level 75 and it's taking millenia to level it up each time, it's pretty tempting to cram a boiled treat down it's throat now and again.

But even if your puzzle solving and natural curiosity weren't rewarded with precious rare candy, you'd at least receive something like an ether. Ethers are hugely helpful when it comes to the Elite Four and you realise that you've been using Earthquake way too much (they shouldn't make it such a good move). Plus, you can't buy ether, you have to find them, so again, it's a pretty nice thing to come across.

So you can imagine my increasing annoyance as I trecked through the Unova Region and all I could find were bloody, Big Mushrooms. There I was, walking around like a tit head, waving the "Dowsing Machine" around my head like a bloody berk (that's the itemfinder to those who prefer old skool terminology) and every time I got close to something that I expected to be amazing - IT WAS A BLOODY BIG MUSHROOM!! No! No, I don't want this! Whose idea was it at the Game Freak that decided to scatter mushrooms all over the sodding floor in this game? What botantic madman decided to chuck spores out far and wide so that every single Pokemon trainer who went out to the world was forced to traaawl through a series of undeeded crappy old fungus-prizes before on the rare occassion finding themselves an ether.

I mean, do you remember when people wanted rare candy SO badly, that they would corrupt their very save file just to gain an infinite, if illegitimate, supply of the things. Oh Cinnibar island; that coastline of yours held such mysteries, some of which even you couldn't explain. But can you imagine modern trainers today, surfing up and down one of the ports in Castelia City in order to cheat and gain x100 Big Mushrooms? No, me neither. And no, not even those mushrooms, you hippy.

A big mushroom is basically described as "a mushroom that can be sold to a collector for a high price" - WHAT COLLECTOR? That sounds as if I'm going to be wandering along one day and stummble across something called 'The Unova Region Annual Mushroom Convention '11! Come on in and join the fun! We have rissotto and rides and fancy dress and most important of all; BIG MUSHROOMS. Great. No, the only collector is your recgular shop vendor, so I'll sell that for 50 credits and be on my way shall I? Thanks for forcing me to fill my pockets with these entirely useless items. Why put these in the game, WHY? They're completely useless.

OH LORD, and don't even get me sodding started on the those bloody SMALL mushrooms.


YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAH!

Day 5 in the Unova Region - "Castelia City I love you; but you're bringing me down"

I put off recounting this day, because it was just blek. Right.

So as you'll recall, I largely ignored the bright lights of the big city and hung out in the desert a bit. However, I spied Cheren hanging around in the desert and, knowing him as I do, I thought he would probably (a) Rope me into thwarting Team Plasma or into getting a Skitty down from a tree, (b) Ponder with the nature of Pokemon battling and finally (c) would battle me. As such, I crept around the edges in some deep sand, catching Pokemon and battling until my squad was this ( I think):



Finally I went back into Castelia City for a gym battle. I didn't know where it was, there are too many sodding doors in this place. I ended up battling an office full of workers until finally discovering that the place was run by a wiley old janitor - or rather, the CEO liked to dress like a janitor. What is he, Princess Jasmine? Seriously. And what, were these guys all on a half day or something? I don't understand why it's ok for Office Worker Tiffany to say to me "Sure, I've got a little time to battle", when it's only midday. Hasn't she got paperwork to do? What kind of business is this, why didn't anyone say, "Yeah, sure, the CEO is right through there. Hm? Yes, that's right, he's the one with the mop". Anyway, it was all good experience. Also, in retrospect, it was called the "Battle Company"...so maybe I should have expected it. But honestly, their turnover in a recession must have been really low.

I finally found the gym at the other end of the city. The gym leader here was a fruit named Burgh who I had encountered a while back in Nacrene City. He was a total berk, who always seemed to turn up when all the action was over. He looked like Mika and minced around more than I liked for a Pokemon game.

OH, WHAT A BLOODY SHOCKER! I'm just about to walk into the gym when that berk Cheren bursts out of the door, blathering on about some sort of plot or event or...I dunno...I thought that he was in the desert for gods sake!...maybe I'm confused...anyway, that tit-head Burgh followed him out of the gym. Cue me chasing around the bloody place trying to find Burgh. This was pretty annoying, since I feel that he had a certain obligation to be at the gym. I wasn't surprised to find Burgh playing around down at the docks, but I was surprised to see him talking to a couple of girls. Bianca was there being an idiot and so was some chick called Iris - it has taken Pokemon ten years to have any kind of ethnic character whatsoever - welcome to the party Iris.

So, basically a Team Plasma grunt suddenly turns up, we're getting Bianca's Pokemon back because she idiotically had them stolen aaand, Burgh chases the guy to a building opposite his own gym (nice one Sherlock) and we all have a nice big fight, which is easily won and I'm there tapping my foot wondering why I cam back to this city and wondering when we can commence on a gym battle.



FINALLY. Everything settles down and I finally get into the gym. The walls in Burgh's gym were mysteriously covered in a sticky goo. It turned out to be honey and so slowly and with very little mental difficulty (remember how cunning old Lt. Surge was?) I broke through the various honey molds and gates that were on show as supposed obstacles. With both a fire and rock type in my squad, I made short work of the Castelia gym cronies.

Burgh dresses like a street entertainer, so I really wanted to beat him at Pokemon. As I said, my squad is rather well equipped to deal with his squad and I made short work of him (for those interested he has a Whirlipede, a Dwebble and a Leavanny). At last; I got...THE INSECT BADGE!

(PI-PIKACHU! This is a sort of 'Ash-wins-a-badge' tribute by the way)

Whoopy doo. Still, I needed it for the Pokemon League. I awkwardly accepted a TM from Burgh, called Struggle Bug, which he seemed to love but which I knew couldn't have sucked more beans unless it was a TM specifically called Suck Beans. As such, I quietly tossed it into a nearby trash can as I left. I was looking forward to leaving this god forsaken berg.