I never saw much online chatter about the contests, but they were a surprisingly detailed addition to the series. The whole concept seems intended to soften the battle-heavy image of the franchise, even though the whole thing is eminently skippable.

The original idea was that every attack move also doubled as a beauty pageant move, which meant that Gamefreak had to come up with alternate data for every single attack in the game, whether you actually entered the Contest Hall or not. So not only do you have to obsess about the four attack moves you grant to each pokemon, but you also need to consider their usefulness in pageants. Wow.

You had five categories of contests (tough, cute, smart, something and something else) and you could encourage any given pokemon to excel in any of those areas by feeding it pokeblocks. Pokeblocks were manufactured by harvesting berries and then tossing them into a fun rhythm-based blender mini-game. Certain combinations of berries created specific types of pokeblocks that could increase your pokemon's overall status in "cuteness," say. Feed one pokemon a ton of cute-enhancing pokeblocks, make sure its attack set favored cute-type moves, and you have a virtual shoe-in for winning the various Cute Contests.

Jesus, this game really is the most complicated thing in the world. Can you believe that parents used to get all hung up on it being some kind of bloody fighting game?

Anyway, the Diamond/Pearl version of all this manages to cock it up royally.

The contests themselves have been hugely expanded, which is cool. It's now a three-stage SUPER CONTEST with two entirely new modes. The first third lets you dress up your pokemon, using the accessory stuff you've been slowly collecting since visiting the TV station back in Jubilife. This is nothing more than a virtual Colorforms set (or one of those Dress President Bush! flash games, for you kids under the age of 25) but it is quick and fun. You're given a theme ("colorful", for example) and then you have to use your accessories to dress up your pokemon in the most appropriate way. So it obviously behooves you to buy lots of accessories. Somewhere.

The second part, the dance competition, is a little tricky. It's PaRappa. If you don't hit that beat, you get penalized. Not as neat as playing dress-up, but okay. Takes too long.

The third part is the attack move display that we remember from Ruby/Sapphire, although upgraded with the tweak of having to choose which judge you want to impress. Same as before, using certain moves in sequence or moves appropriate to your pokemon's natural proclivities will work the best.

So what sucks? Poffins.

Instead of blending berries into pokeblocks, you now must cook berries into poffins. Which are, I guess, vaguely cookies. The idea is the same: particular berries result in poffins that enhance certain attributes, and the process creates textures and flavors that may or may not be appreciated by your team. (Your pokemon may prefer "spicy" poffins, for example.)

The mini-game for making poffins, however, is a complete failure. You have to stir the batter with the stylus as it cooks, rotating either clockwise or counter-clockwise as you're told. If you spin too fast, you slop over the side (minus points) or if you spin too slowly, the batter burns (minus points.) And since the directional instructions change frequently, you will never sustain the proper pace to avoid screwing up, as a punishing inertia system makes it really tough to stir the batter in the opposite direction. Watch this:

So what am I doing wrong? This totally blows because I really dig the contest thing. I'm fairly positive that it will be impossible to win the higher level competitions (and receive ribbons!!!!) without doping up your team on the correct kind of poffins. Bleah.

In more exciting news, I caught a Gastly in the field immediately east of Hearthome. Guess who just got fast-tracked to be a major player in my team.

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