To get to the Power Plant, you have to swim in the river that runs around the Route 10/Rock Tunnel map point. Easy. The Plant itself is a very simple maze, culminating in a lone Zapdos awaiting your attention. I always dread these one-off capture battles, so I stocked up on Ultra and Great Balls and restarted a lot. I think I caught the Zapdos on my third or fourth restart, on the third or fourth Ultra Ball thrown. You just have to play the odds on these fights, be they Legendary Birds, Beasts or Regis. The other notable aspect to the Power Plant was the common presence of Pikachu, which I never did find back in Viridian Forest. Now I have plenty.
After a restock, I flew back down to Fuchsia for the long trek back to Seafoam Islands. Finding the Articuno deep in the bottom of the annoying multi-floor puzzle maze is easy; catching him was expectedly hard. It took many more restarts and Ultra/Great Balls to grab him. For some reason, I completely missed the second half of the dopey drop-the-boulders puzzle, so I wasted a ton of time backtracking and pacing trying to find the way out.
Once I realized what I had overlooked, I emerged from Seafoam almost totally scathed. Ugh. Happily, it's a short swim westward to Cinnabar and the next Gym Badge. Before powering off for the night, I visited the Pokemon Lab in town and dropped off my Helix Fossil with the weird scientist. He'll coax it back to life through the vagaries of super-science and I'll get an Omantye out of the deal. Then I'll return with my Old Amber and see what that gets me. It's like Jurassic Park down here in Cinnabar.
Also traded some Cinnabar native a Venonat for her Tangela. Venonats are all over the Safari Zone; I don't know if Tangelas can be caught in the wild so I think I came out ahead.
Back in the real world, I finally got to test out the wireless adapter with a fellow Champion-in-Training, Ben. The wireless linkup has a different presentation than the good ol' Link Cable... mainly so you can stockpile a ton of wireless players inside the Union Room. Since it was just me and him, the Union Room seemed largely ornamental. Inside the room, you can initiate chats, trades and battles, all riding on the adapter's happy wireless signal. I traded him a Nidorina for a Mankey, just so we could ponder the philosophical ramifications of sending our hand-caught beasts through the invisible air. Makes me hunger for the upcoming DS Pokemon games all the more.
Funny aside: since every gamer looks the same when playing LeafGreen or FireRed (there's one male player sprite and one female player sprite), the Union Room assigns different sprites to everyone in the room but you. So Ben saw me as a Bird Keeper, and I saw him as a Camper. The Union Room also does not show your character's true movement on other player's screens... the opponent sprites just walk in circles. I'd love to see a fully packed Union Room with all the random sprites pacing in low-grade pathfinding routines.
If the DS games weren't enough excitement, Miyamoto himself let slip news of another GameCube Pokemon game. The question, Miyamoto-san, is now this: Will it stink up the joint like Coliseum? It is entirely safe to predict that it will not have online play; that appears to be slated for the next hardware generation. If at all, Mr. Cynic says. For a long time rumors held of a multiplayer party game (Pichu Bros. Party Panic), but that one has vanished. Dare we dream for a fully-realized RPG combining the scope of the GBA series with the graphics of the Cube? Coliseum was only halfway there, plus it lacked the cool bonus features of the N64 Stadium games. Please learn from reviews - not from sales - on this one, Nintendo. We're all still waiting.
Time: 31:37
Badges: 6
Pokedex: 71 (Seen: 123)
Party: Growlithe lv34, Blastoise lv43, Katamari (Meowth) lv36, Gengar lv49, Gyarados lv25, Snorlax lv45
