And this week's extremely productive shiny hunting ends with a shiny Ditto!

The Pokemon Village is a really good place to look for them. So many yellow flowers, which are a lot easier to decipher the shaking strength of than normal grass, especially compared to Santalune Forest, where the camera angle is ridiculous.

I made it all the way to 38 chain on my first attempt today and kept resetting the radar, figuring the stupid placebo charm would kick in and net me some shiny grass. Nope. I finally got impatient and started entering battles, getting the chain to 42. My supply of max repels went from 100ish all the way down to 30 before a shiny patch of grass finally appeared.

And now I need a break from the Pokeradar... for about a year.

Got back into playing Pokemon Y. The game is a lot of fun, but it's way too easy. I haven't even beaten the 8th Gym and my Delphox is at Level 70. I love how they brought back the EXP all from Red and Blue and managed to do it in a way that doesn't bombard you with a flurry of text boxes every time you beat a monster. That way I can build a strong well rounded team without having to grind and juggle Pokemon around. That being said, its gotten to the point where I can one hit kill almost anything.

I was actually insulted by how easy it was to catch Yvetal. First I knocked down its health to red as you do before throwing an Ultra Ball which shook three times before it broke free. Throw a second Ultra Ball, caught it. I'm tempted to just trade my Master Ball over to ORAS when I get it just to see if Zygarde can give me a good challenge. But overall it's still a really good game in spite of the low difficulty. The 3D graphics look great, the locations are fun to run around in, I like the new Pokemon a lot more than the gen 5 additions and I love the character customisation. And most importantly the core gameplay is still as fun as ever.


On a side note I bought White 2 the other day for pretty cheap. Still haven't played it yet, but the post game content sounds amazing.

Yvetal has a high catch rate due it being part of the story. You're suppose to capture it. Honestly I am okay with legends not taking long to catch anymore. It was frustrating sit there for like 15 minutes waiting for these stupid mons to get inside a damn pokeball. I went back in my SS file to catch the bird trio to transfer to my AS file. Moltres took 23 balls to capture it. I had it asleep and down in red. It was never hard to capture legends they just made it frustrating. On a funny note in SS it took me two balls to capture Articuno.

Did you use the exp share a lot? By the 8th gym in my X file my Pokemon were around the same level as the gym leader's Pokemon. I only use the exp share to train a very large team, but I don't let them get over level. 

At this point in time the difficulty of Pokemon is up to the player. I personally like it. They made things may more convenient. I love that I can train over 10 Pokemon thanks to the new exp. share. I hate limiting myself to six or eight Pokemon. There are currently 720 Pokemon. Why should I limit myself to six? 

Right now in my Y file I am doing a Wonder Lock challenge. I can only use Pokemon from Wonder Trading. It's actually a bit challenging. I'm not doing an extreme WT challenge. Those I've seen doing it on the internet treat it like a Nuzlock. So I made up my own:

1. I can keep my starter.
2. No legends.
3. You can do a WT session after each gym and catch five Pokemon to WT.
4. If you get the same Pokemon from a previous WT or one from the same evolution line you can WT until you get a new one. Because other wise I would be stuck with Wurmples, Zizagoons, and Ralts. 

My is still challenging because I'm stuck with what I got. I'm not getting all the types I want. I have gotten a lot of water and flying Pokemon.

So Nintendo Direct happened and I was reading a rundown of things announced and...

"news that the Pokémon games that started it all – Pokémon Red Version, Pokémon Blue Version and Pokémon Yellow Version – will launch with new wireless communication functionality in the Nintendo eShop on the Nintendo 3DS system on Feb. 27. "

I didn't think they would actually do that. I didn't think they COULD do that. But I had hoped and now I am hype. This is especially great news because it turns out that even the games that didn't have an in-game clock used a battery, and when that battery dies, all progress not only gets erased, but also the game CANNOT hold a save file.

Now if it had online trading and battling that'd be amazing.

I was shocked with the announcement. Somehow my Yellow game still saves, but Silver doesn't it. How odd. Regardless I will get it for when my Yellow kicks the bucket.

you can replace that battery in those cartridges... 

Mew Ami wrote:

you can replace that battery in those cartridges... 

You can, but they're stuck in there and require some special tools I don't have.

A few years back I paid $3 or so to have my Sapphire Version's battery replaced by an ebay dealer, which went well. But between Blue, Gold, Yellow and Emerald, only the latter is worth sending to replace, and I don't want to do that cause it'll likely erase my file.

My gen 3 batteries have died, but they still save. I just can't do time stuff anymore which I think had something to do with the berries? Never really cared about berries.

Yea. Gen 3 only needs the batteries for clock based events, but Gens 1 and 2 need it for everything. My Gold and Yellow versions both have dead batteries, and can't hold a save, while my Emerald version has a dead battery and can still save.

Ahh, my cousin told me about this yesterday! I am so very excited to have usable copies to play. I have cartridges of Blue and Yellow, and while they do play, they freeze so often, I have to save before and after each battle, as well as every time I walk through a whole route or city. I never had an original GameBoy, so I can't do any trading. And I never had a GBASP -- only an original GBA -- so I can't play it with a backlit screen, and let me tell you, trying to go back to using a GBA after you've had a DS is not fun.

But now, my problems with playing the originals are pretty much GONE. I'll be able to see the game without sitting under a lamp, and since they're implementing local wireless trading, I'll be able to get a copy on my 3DS and 2DS and trade with myself. And obviously, the game won't crash all the time.

I just wonder, how much else are they going to change along with the local wireless? Will they keep in all the infamous glitches? I sure hope so. Sure, they can screw up your game, but the beauty of the Virtual Console is restore points. I once went through Blue and I had a Mew on my team and... That was the most amazing experience. Also, are they going to keep in the Game Corner? That area was pretty important to the plot, but I know that the whole playing slots thing is frowned upon in some countries, which is why they stopped putting it in after HG/SS. Hopefully you'll still be able to buy coins -- no one I knew ever actually bothered trying to win the coins, anyway.

Also, I hope if this goes well, they bring over G/S/C! Especially Crystal. I want to play as a girl, and the time machine would definitely be fun, too. I actually played G/S/C more often than R/B/Y as a kid, since HG/SS weren't out yet, and my Kanto needs were pretty much satisfied with FR/LG. However, to my dismay, my copies are completely BROKEN, and I can't play them at all, which saddens me. HG/SS was nowhere near as good. I have faith that Nintendo will put them out, though. G/S/C are very well loved.

Yellow will still have its color! That makes me happy. My first handheld was the GBC so I'm used to seeing it in color.

The Pokemon Subreddit I found a nice google spread sheet that helps you track your completion on the National Dex! I have 170 more to go! I am so happy! As right now I will not have any of the Gen 5 event Legendaries. I had Victini, but I deleted my Black file to start over. I wish I could go back in time and tell myself about the Pokebank. As for gen 4 events I will be missing Darkrai. Luckily event mons don't count toward completion.

So I still haven't finished Y and I haven't even started playing Black 2, but I bought Omega Ruby for my birthday and I just started playing it. Not bad so far. Though I do have one very minor gripe.

XY was a major graphical upgrade over the other games and ORAS is on the same level. But that causes a bit of a clash. While in XY they made these really amazing looking locations with the technology of the 3DS in mind, ORAS still has that GBA game design. Looks fine on the GBA (That was pretty much all it was capable of) but when you blow up Littleroot or Petalburg and put it into the 3D it just looks kind of empty and boring.

Other than that though, I'm liking how they blend the features from XY with the features of Ruby and Sapphire. From my understanding they decided to tweak the story a bit in some places so I'm excited to see how that went. Plus I love seeing May in full 3D (Especially those cute facial expressions) and the remixed music is good too.

I find ORAS bright and colorful. But no they really didn't do anything to the towns. Well one town change, but I won't say which one.

Well, I just beat Y. It's not one of my absolute favourites, but overall I'd still rank it highly among the other Pokemon games. The difficulty (Or lack thereof) was certainly a let down but it was still a lot of fun. The story wasn't perfect but it definitely had its moments. I'd like it if they went for that approach to storytelling in future games.

Plus I'm glad they found a way to eliminate grinding all the same. I hear that ORAS tries to solve the difficulty problem by giving you stronger opponents so that's a relief. Although I'm kind of hesitant to jump into White 2 now that I've spent 20+ hours in Kalos. Gen 5 is actually one of my favourite regions but the lack of features is going to be a bit of a pain.

I'm probably going to do the post game stuff in Y and play through Omega Ruby first.

Yeah you can rebattle trainers and their Pokemon grow stronger based on the number badages you have.

For the 20 ani they're doing pokemon events for the mythical pokemon! Gens 1 through 5!

http://www.pokemon20.com/en-us/mythical.html

It's worldwide I believe. I'm not sure how people from Europe/AUS will get them.

I'm so happy I can finally get the gen 5 mythical pokemon and Darkri.