There's been two main reasons why I haven't done a Sapphire Diary update in a while. One is Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, the spiritual successor to Paper Mario... M&L pretty much owned my GBA SP for a couple months. Go buy it!
The other is Feebas. The hunt for Feebas has all but sapped my will to keep playing. Part of my problem is that I don't understand how exactly the stupid Dewford hip phrase changes. Does it change every time you talk to the goof outside the building, whether he likes your offered phrase or not? (I know it changes whenever you mix records with another cartridge, but does it change when you just trade?) I have now been up and down that awful river west of Fortree two and a half times... and I think I inadvertently changed the phrase in the middle somewhere, accidentally shuffling the magic Feebas tiles.
Fishing is maddeningly boring. I read that you should stick with the Old Rod so that you don't trigger as many battles with non-Feebas pokemon, but I'm not sure if I believe it. Feebas = Hate.
As for the Pokemon eReader cards... well, remember when I complained about the Battle Tower? The eReader cards are like that, but worse. As I later found out, you do get rare items and badges for your Battle Tower runs (although I would still rather have the experience points.) The eReader card battles don't even give you that.
You scan a card and the trainer on the card shows up at the old man's house in Mossdeep. You fight a 3-on-3 match... with absolutely no results. No experience, no additions to your 'dex, no rare items, no badges. These battles don't even add to the battle count in your PokeNav. Sure, some of the card trainers have pokemon that (to date) can't be seen in Hoenn, but they don't increase your pokedex records, so what's the point? I fought a Houndoom. Big deal. Just showing off the hidden art files, I guess.
The card sets also come with rare berry cards, which are another letdown. Scanning a berry doesn't add that berry to your inventory. This would be too useful. No, it simply turns all existing Enigma Berries into the berry on the card. Scan a new berry card and they all get unilaterally transformed again. I guess the idea is to puree them all into Pokeblocks right away.
I think the concept is solid, and Nintendo hyped this up like crazy... but what we got was a pale shadow of what could have been. I'd consider this as Nintendo testing the waters, to see if the buying public would go for the idea before doing something really amazing with it. Considering the overall cost involved (eReader + 2nd GBA + card packs + link cable), I doubt many gamers bit.
Still, imagine if this idea was tied to the card game cards instead. Scan a Potion card and get a Potion in the video game. Scan a Bulbasaur card and get a Bulbasaur doll, or a semi-rare item, or even a damn Bulbasaur, for crying out loud. Being able to choose from a collection of trainer cards for new battles is a great idea, but those battles have to actually mean something. Or else the whole enterprise is a waste of time. Give me experience, give me items, give me a filled pokedex... just don't give me that old man saying "Wow, that was a great battle! Thanks!" Bite me.
The Pokemon Colosseum pre-order bonus began today, and I already have my Bonus Disc. It's not much of a disc, though. It consists of two movies (one for Colosseum and one for an upcoming Pokemon movie) and the ability to download the rare Jirachi into your game. How about some other game demos? Or an exclusive (and better) eReader card? But holy crap am I looking forward to Colosseum's RPG mode. You'll be hearing about that one here in the diary.
The whole transfer-Jirachi-to-your-game bit was adorable. And it's doubly interesting in that Jirachi is actually a trojan horse: sure, you get to add this uncatchable oddball pokemon to your collection, but it also carries along a bug fix. Several months ago, Nintendo realized that the berry patches stop growing after a year. Something to do with the internal clock. So the Jirachi download somehow fixes the berry problem! Pretty nifty stuff. A patch for a GBA cartridge! Unheard of.
Time: 142:44
Badges: 8
Pokedex: 188 (seen: 195)
Party: Metagross lv66, Salamence lv50, Razorbeak (Swellow) lv64, Golduck lv50, Alakazam lv22, Jirachi lv5
