My Pokemon LeafGreen adventure begins now, and this online diary will track my progress from neophyte to master.

Since LeafGreen (and its counterpart FireRed) are remakes of original Pokemon classics Blue and Red, it's back to the continent of Kanto, Professor Oak, and the original eight Gym Leaders. I named my character JoeLG, which was intended to stand for LeafGreen but now looks like JoeLarge. Bleah. How about JoeLegend? Yeah, let's go with that.

Since Oak can never recall the name of his own nephew - destined to be my greatest rival - I named him Liquid. I just finished Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes, so the allusion amused me.

As expected, Liquid is a complete prick and wanted to battle as soon as Oak gifted us our starting pokemon. I chose Squirtle; he picked Bulbasaur. I won. Then it was off to wander through a couple of in-game tutorials about catching and status effects and such. Now I'm in Viridian Forest, which if I recall correctly, was just the place to catch native Pikachu.

First impressions: the cartridge is a very healthy glowing green color. The graphics are much the same as they looked in Ruby and Sapphire, with a couple effect tweaks... like a cooler Pokedex, and fullscreen splash screens upon entering a new area. One feature I really like is the flashback recap that occurs every time you load a saved game. You get a brief visual rundown of your latest accomplishments, which will be great if you pick the game up after an extended period of not-playing and have forgotten what you have to do next. The flashbacks are all black & white, and they even animate your actual actions, so it's just like watching yourself on a convenience store monitor. And yes, they're skippable, o impatient one.

My name is JoeLG from Pallet Town, and I will be the greatest pokemon trainer Kanto has ever seen.

Time: :29
Badges: 0
Pokedex: 3
Party: Squirtle lv8, Rattata lv3, Caterpie lv4

I have to wonder why Nintendo didn't keep the cool clock feature from Gold/Silver in the Advance generation of poke-games. It made those games all the more compelling to know that you could only enter the Bug Catching Contest on Saturdays, or that you have to be at a certain place during the morning, or whatever. The real-life clock really elevated Gold/Silver, and it is keenly missed in Ruby/Sapphire and FireRed/LeafGreen.

Speaking of bug catching, are there any sadder trainers in Kanto than the Bug Catcher boys? They insist on fielding Kakunas and/or Metapods that have no aggressive attacks, only defensive ones. It's an easy way to level up some lowly lv3 pokemon: against a lv9 Metapod that refuses to do damage to you. I suppose the Bug Catchers are placed here in the beginning of the game for just that purpose: painless experience-farming.

I've already evolved up both a Beedrill and a Butterfree, but I doubt I'll hold on to both for long. Two bug-types seems a bit much. I'm trying to actively pursue pokemon I tended to avoid back in Pokemon Yellow, so the Beedrill might win out. These bug types are all about short-term gratification since they evolve so quickly. What fun is it when they reach their highest stage at level 10? There's nothing left to look forward to but fresh attacks. You can see why Ash himself had no trouble releasing his Butterfree to the wild back in the first season.

For every bit of script that I recall exactly from the original game, there's something I have wholly forgotten, like the Museum in Pewter City. I paid my $50 to get in, but I don't remember what eventually happens there. I'm sure the plot points will reveal themselves in time. I love the spooky reconstructed skeletons of prehistoric pokemon Aerodactyl and Kabutops, though.

Brock, Brock, Brock. Pewter City must not have much of a legacy in pokemon training if the best you can swing is a lv14 Onix. My Squirtle's Bubble attack pretty much rocked the Pewter Gym single handedly.

I did not find any Pikachu in Viridian Forest (maybe later), but I did catch a Jigglypuff down in the grass below the entrance to Mt. Moon. And that's where I am now; it's bigger than I remember it, with cute little water puddles and sand patches. And tons of Zubat, which is irrelevant because you could find those in Sapphire so I could always trade one over for 'dex completion.

Time: 2:52
Badges: 1
Pokedex: 12
Party: Rattata lv11, Butterfree lv10, Squirtle lv14, Beedrill lv11, Pidgey lv14, NidoranF lv7

I kinda duck-and-covered my way through Mt. Moon. Things were getting hairy for my tiny crew, so I avoided a lot of battles. (Except the Team Rocket intro and the fight for the Helix Fossil.) Unfortunately, that meant losing out on some experience points... which made a difference when I got to Cerulean City.

I trapped myself for a couple hours. You see, the path from Mt. Moon to Cerulean is one-way and (initially) the only exit paths are blocked. The southern route is blocked by a CUT tree (don't have CUT yet.) The east path requires the cops to step aside from blocking the house that Team Rocket robbed. Stepping on the northern path triggers a fight with Liquid. Then there's Cerulean's Gym Leader, Misty, blocking the town's major plot point: the Cascade Badge.

So I had effectively cornered myself with a weak team, surrounded by blocked paths and difficult fights. Luckily, there is one patch of tall grass just outside city limits, so I burned some time out there training up my party. Also picked up a Mankey, a silly beast who I remember fondly from his primal screaming back in Pokemon Snap.

Trained up to my satisfaction, I took down Misty and Liquid in short order, then travelled north up the Nugget Bridge gauntlet to visit Bill's House. Turned down an offer to join Team Rocket... which would be a cool idea for an alternate-angle future game: joining Team Rocket. Saved Bill from his teleportation accident (where did the Clefable go?); I guess that was the scripted event that allowed the police to move away from the Rocket-ransacked house.

Now I could take the long walk to Vermilion City, passing the awkwardly-placed Day Care Center along the way. I left my NidoranF with the owner there... hey, shouldn't we able to breed pokemon at this Center? Weak.

Now begins the item parade: received the Old Rod, the Bike Voucher and the Vs. Seeker from various generous folks in Vermilion. Caught a Magikarp with the Old Rod. Ran back to the Cerulean Bike Shop for the free bike (they're $1,000,000 otherwise.) The Vs. Seeker is an different take on Sapphire's Trainer Eyes. Activate it and it shows you what trainers in the area are willing to battle you. Since you have to be standing near people for the Vs. Seeker to ID them, the Trainer Eyes (which listed every willing fighter and their locale across the continent) strikes me as quite a bit more useful.

Caught a Meowth near the Day Care Center... if I remember correctly, you couldn't catch Meowths in Yellow since that game followed the cartoon's storyline a little more than the other games, and Meowth is pretty much a Team Rocket thing (except that episode with all the city Meowths and the explanation of how the TR Meowth taught himself to talk.) The first Meowth I caught was holding a Nugget, which you can sell for $5000. That is awesome. I went back for some more, but no such luck. However, it's fun to start your battles with a Meowth, because the little bastard will usually steal something from whoever he's facing... so far, he's lifted a couple of berries for me. Which I gather is a cool thing, since LeafGreen doesn't have the whole Berry Planting deal that Sapphire had.

Time: 7:07
Badges: 2
Pokedex: 21
Party: Rattata lv16, Wartortle lv22, Meowth lv14, Pidgeotto lv20, Mankey lv20, Ch'Ding (Farfetch'd) lv8

Between Gyms 2 and 3, the world starts opening up for you and the path becomes less linear. Now is when you can begin getting lost... which makes the startup flashback feature all the more helpful.

I boarded the S.S. Anne, docked at Vermilion's port. This venerable cruise ship is little more than a floating battleground, so I got plenty of fights in. Happily, the second room from the right on the ship's first floor lets you heal back up, so you're not stranded with an ailing party. The ship's seasick captain - don't look in his trash can! - hands over the CUT HM, which is really the main purpose for shoving aboard.

Liquid - who is perpetually one step ahead of me - challenged me to a fight on the Anne. His Bulbasaur still hasn't evolved up to an Ivysaur; he seems to be concentrating on his Pidgeotto. The fight was brief, and Liquid soon sauntered off to the tune of his personal theme music.

Armed now with the CUT move, I went back to clear out some CUTtable trees I had to pass before. Went through Diglett's Cave, found the blocked road with the sleeping Snorlax, and took down the third Gym Leader, Lt. Surge. And I went back through Mt. Moon to fight all the guys I avoided on the first pass.

Since when did Surge become the "lightning American"? The guy is a total cheeseball, but his third (and final) fighter - a Raichu - smacked me down a couple times. Surge leads with a Voltorb that I handily Mankeyed. Then a poor Pikachu that my Mankey can KO with one Karate Chop. Then that Raichu, who paralyzes opponents into submission. I hate status attacks.

I've changed my opinion on the Vs. Seeker. It looks like there are a lot more trainers to re-battle in LeafGreen then there was in Sapphire. So if you are near a bunch of available trainers, odds are the Vs. Seeker will snag one or two of them for an immediate battle. Sapphire's list of eager trainers changed over time, plus you had the inconvenience of finding them again. With the Vs. Seeker, you just have to use it where you stand.

However, I don't like LeafGreen's inventory organizating system. Instead of listing the TM holder and Berry Pouch at the root level, these items are buried inside the Key Items section of the bag. So you have to drill through extra lists to get down to them. It would be easier if they stayed at the top level of the bag. I'd also like a top level gadget list, so the Vs. Seeker and Fame Checker and stuff were easier to use. And speaking of that, it's high time Pokemon added more hotkeys for items. Right now, we're still stuck with a single hotkey (Select) even though there are tens of items that would be more usefully accessed on a single click.

Time: 10:07
Badges: 3
Pokedex: 26 (Seen: 59)
Party: Meowth lv24, Wartortle lv25, Mankey lv24, Beedrill lv19, Pidgeotto lv23, Raticate lv21

With the Snorlax blocking the way and the route into Saffron City closed (which is something the Kanto Transportation Authority really ought to look into) there's still a lot of walking to be done. Today's diary entry is going to cover the most maudlin area in a Pokemon game before or since: Lavender Town.

Lavender Town covers a topic rarely broached in modern poke-literature, the deaths of pokemon. Apparently pokemon can die, and this is where they go when they do. Or, at least, this is where we bury them. Lavender Tower is a multi-storied building packed with gravestones and mourning trainers. I'm not sure what can kill a pokemon, other than the town's gossip about Team Rocket. Old age? Advanced Pokerus?

The Tower is currently reset by evil spirits and a squad of psychic channellers are in there trying to Ghostbust the place. It's not working. I had to battle all the channellers instead, while avoiding random attacks by unnamed ghosts. However, it was easy. My Meowth's Bite attack is super-effective against all the Gastlys and Haunters fielded by the trainers, and my Raticate's Run Away ability guaranteed that I would not get caught offguard by the "ghosts." I'll have to come back to clean out the tower, since you need the Silph Scope to battle the spirits, and those come from Saffron if I recall correctly. I also ran into Liquid again.

I can't stop loving my Meowth. Pay Day is making me rich, and Pickup is amazing. I had Lavender's Name Rater change his name to Katamari. I have cancelled his evolution several times because becoming a Persian erases his Pickup ability.

The other exciting news is I stopped by for yesterday's Trade and Battle Day at my local Toys R Us. Which was only barely being operated. Although Nintendo's email promised free stuff and game demos and the titular trading and battling, there was nothing on display, no special table, no banners, and no demo monkey. We figured it was another example of the local franchise just not having the staff to support these nationally-based special events, but then Rhonda noticed a fellow patron clutching a Pokemon poster. Turns out you had to go to the customer service desk and make an ass of yourself begging to see the free Pokemon stuff.

So I did. The counter woman, harried and missing someone in electronics, called over her shoulder to someone else "They want to demo the Pokemon game." Then "Red or Green" to me. Uh, Red?

OK, so this is sort of what was promised. I feigned interest and fired up FireRed. The game's PC has about 10 boxes filled with one type each. Like, a box of Ekans, a box of Slowpokes, a box of Haunters. Nothing I would classify as awesome, like the unattainable starters or a Moltres or even a damn Kingdra (which I would immediately transfer over to Sapphire.) Of course I had my SP with me, so I had Rhon pretend to play while I turned my LeafGreen on and hooked up the link cable. Stupidly, Toys R Us had no mention of the wireless adapter, which is probably one of the big reasons Nintendo tried to orchestrate these little events: show off the new tech.

With Rhon manning the demo copy, we traded over a Haunter, Machoke and Shellder to my game. I gave up some extra lowlies... a Zubat, Meowth and Geodude. Bye, guys! Naturally, the Haunter and Machoke evolved on transit, so my pokedex got a +5 boost after all was done and powered down. I'm sure the counter women weren't impressed, but I'm happy to have a Gengar.

After handing over the demo unit, we got a free poster, promo card (the same Beldums they were handing out at Origins), and a coupon for $5 off $20 of Pokemon merchandise. Done.

Time: 13:09
Badges: 3
Pokedex: 33 (Seen: 70)
Party: Geodude lv20, Gengar lv26, Katamari (Meowth) lv29, Wartortle lv25, Mankey lv25, Raticate lv26

Whoops! You don't get the Silph Scope in Saffron City. Silph Co.'s headquarters is in Saffron, but the Scope comes from beating Giovanni deep in Team Rocket's underground base, right here in Celadon. Judging from the Rocket presence and the new casino, Celadon appears to be a city decaying from the inside.

So here's the chain of events: you press the button behind the R poster in the game corner so you can sneak into the Rocket hideaway. You beat Giovanni to get the Silph Scope. You need to Scope to uncover the restless spirit guarding the final floor of Lavender Tower. You need to beat that guy - the uncatchable ghost of a dead Marowak, by the way - to meet up with Mr. Fuji at the Tower top. You need to "free" Fuji (three boring Rocket grunt battles) to get the Poke Flute. You need to use the Poke Flute to wake up the Snorlax so you can open up the next couple paths. Whew.

I actually haven't bothered the Snorlax yet, because I have plenty to do otherwise. Celadon is the home of Erika, Gym Leader #4. I think I did the Rocket base and Lavender Town sub-quest out of order, because now I have some pokemon with a level beyond that which I can control.

I've never had this happen before, so I find it pretty amusing now. Misty's badge (#2) guarantees that pokemon up to level 30 will obey you in battle. As you gain badges, you get access to higher and higher levels. It's a smart way to keep folks from trading over a lv100 asskicker from an old game and romping through the quest in 30 minutes. So tonight, once my Gengar (she of the famous Toys R Us trade session) started disobeying me.

She'll be fine for a couple attacks, and then you start getting messages like "Gengar is loafing around!" instead of her attacking. My favorite is when she ignores the attack move I chose and instead carries out another one. Once I score Erika's badge, pokemon up to level 50 will obey me, so Gengar will be snapped back to attention. Remember in the cartoon when Ash's Charmander evolved too fast and became a sullen, worthless Charizard? That's me right now.

Celadon's "Game Corner" casino is the usual crappy slot machine stuff. Annoying. Celadon's few remaining upstanding citizens hate the place. If you win enough credits, you can buy some exclusive TMs and even a couple rarish pokemon. Instead of playing for credits, I just bought some... enough to claim an Abra. Sure, you can catch them in the wild, but why bother. The feral ones teleport out of battle more often than not anyway.

But here's what's cute about the Game Corner, something that US audiences probably don't notice. You ever wonder why you have to walk to the building next door to the casino to get your prizes? Oddly inconvenient, right? Well, there's a distinct cultural reason why the two buildings are set up that way. Gambling is illegal in Japan, so pachinko parlors (think slot machines) can't offer simple cash rewards for winning like you would get in Vegas. Instead, you trade in your credit for some piece of junk toy. Then you leave the game hall, because right next door to the parlor is a wholly separate establishment, sort of a pawn shop, that will buy your junk toy for cash. An obvious loophole, and one that has been more or less ignored by Japanese law enforcement for years... because of tradition and because there's more important crap to do than bust up gambling halls.

That's enough education for you for now! I have to go battle Erika.

Time: 15:37
Badges: 3
Pokedex: 38 (Seen: 83)
Party: Graveler lv28, Gengar lv32, Katamari (Meowth) lv30, Wartortle lv33, Mankey lv27, Raticate lv29

I scammed my way through the Erika fight, playing the odds that my lv30+ guys would deliver one-hit kills so I wouldn't have to worry much about her sleep heavy team. And now that it's over, her Gym's badge has brought everybody back in line, so no more mis-cues in battle.

Somewhere along the line, I received the Fly HM, but I haven't bothered teaching it to anyone yet. Haven't settled on who my big flier is going to be. I've used Pidgeot, Tropius, and Swellow in previous games. Maybe something unusual like that Farfetch'd? Regardless, it's too soon to bother with Fly; there's still a lot of walk/run/biking to do for exploratory purposes.

Caught a Snorlax. I've always been a Snorlax fan, so I'm probably going to put some training time into this one. His attacks aren't that great - half his move list is taken up by the slow-acting combo of Yawn and Snore - but his 150+ HP makes him a huge staller.

I wandered south to Fuchsia City, home to the Safari Zone. I don't have Surf yet, so much of the Safari is off limits, but it's still worth the $500 to visit at this early stage. Warden Slowpoke (employee nickname) is running a contest to reward anyone who can make it to the farthest corner of the Zone within the usual time limits. I'm not ready to consider that sub-quest yet. I caught a Rhyhorn, NidoranF, and two Nidorinas (didn't somebody back a ways want to trade one of those?)

I don't remember this from Red/Blue/Yellow: the Safari Zone zoo. Outside the gates are some enclosed areas with pokemon inside. It's cute, even though the cages look depressingly bare. Reading the posted signs even add the zoo tenants to your "seen" Pokedex, so you can see a Chansey, Lapras, Kangaskhan, Kabuto, among others.

Time: 17:50
Badges: 4
Pokedex: 43 (Seen: 98)
Party: Snorlax lv33, Gengar lv35, Katamari (Meowth) lv32, Wartortle lv35, Primeape lv28, Raticate lv32

I still feel like I'm outpacing the game a little bit, and Koga's gym was another easy go. His dojo has those famous invisible walls, but if you stare hard enough at the tiles, you can see where they are.

I actually tried to get through Sabrina's gym before heading down to Koga, but her battlers were definitely above my level. I did manage to clean out Silph Co. of the Team Rocket hostile takeover, and I grabbed a free Hitmonchan from the Fighting Club. Suckas.

I took the northward route up Cycling Road, wiping out all the bikers I could find. Not a lot of pain there, just a bunch of Weezings, mostly. At the top of Cycling Road is a Scientist with an Amulet Coin for you. Now I'm working to catch the Snorlax blocking the path east, just because I want to snag a couple of the brutes.

Wartortle evolved into a Blastoise... they do grow up fast. Since I now have some nicely fat pokemon heading my party, I decided it was time to switch in some lowlies for training. I'm leading with a Safari Zone Venonat at the moment, with the idea that his evolved form - Venomoth - will be my designated Flyer. Never worked much with a Venomoth before, so I'm looking forward to it.

Of course, the ultimate lowly is Magikarp. This is a pokemon who won't even learn a simple Tackle attack until level 15. But we all know why we bother with 'karps, don't we?

And of all the crazy things, a guy back at Silph Co. gave me a Lapras. Nice. Although I don't understand why the pokedex would still credit me as the original trainer when I received it as a gift.

Time: 22:34
Badges: 5
Pokedex: 47 (Seen: 109)
Party: Snorlax lv42, Gengar lv44, Katamari (Meowth) lv35, Blastoise lv39, Venonat lv30, Magikarp lv14

So Venomoths cannot learn the Fly HM? Insane. They fly, don't they? My designated Flyer is now a Fearow, an ugly bird with a nasty disposition. Well, I wanted something different than the Pidgeots and Butterfrees I've used before...

After rampaging through Sabrina's Gym (thanks to Gengar), I realized I never found the Surf HM. I did a ton of backtracking and talking, but I could not locate any clues on its whereabouts. So I did what anyone should do in that situation: I asked an eight year old. "That's in the Safari Zone," he told me. Oh, yeah, right. When you first walk in there, you read all these signs and convos about the great gift you get if you can make it all the way to the farthest corner of the Zone. I thought that was just a stupid sidequest! They even tell you the prize you get "will make getting around much easier." I was really hoping you'd get a fighter jet or something... but it's just Surf, which is completely necessary to continue in the game.

LeafGreen/FireRed has a terrible lack of optional sidequests and subgames. It really is a pale shadow of Ruby/Sapphire, and I would encourage anyone who hasn't played either to go with R/S (or the upcoming Emerald) before bothering with LG/FR. After all the berry runs, talent contests, secret bases and whatnot of Sapphire, I'm fairly bored by LeafGreen. It lacks that free-world feel. Yeah, yeah, LG/FR is just a remake, but I was expecting a full bore remake to bring this game up to the level of R/S. Maybe the special new content after the Championship at the end of the game will make up for it.

The same pal who told me where to find Surf also traded me a Growlithe, which can't be naturally found in LeafGreen. I gave him a Weepinbell in return. Not sure if that is a LeafGreen exclusive or not, so I don't know if I helped his FireRed game much. I love working with traded pokemon, because they level up so damn fast. My Growlithe came over at level 15 and I got him up to 31 in no time at all. Taught him Strength too. I'm pretty confident he will be in my Championship team.

Now that Blastoise knows Surf, I ventured south from Fuchsia City over the ocean to Seafoam Islands. Seafoam appears to be a giant roadblock on the way to Cinnabar Island, where the next Gym Leader is found. I really hate long paths like this, especially when there's no safe ground from random encounters. The road from Fuchsia to Seafoam is a longish waterway - where you get jumped by annoying level 6 Tentacools every couple steps - and then Seafoam itself is a multi-level cave puzzle maze. Ick.

I found an Articuno deep inside the Seafoam cave, but I was in no condition to battle and capture him. So I bailed out of the whole path and went back to stock up on supplies. While I'm back on the main continent, I'm going to head up towards the Power Plant. I hear tell there's a Zapdos in there, but I haven't found the right path to get there yet.

Time: 27:44
Badges: 6
Pokedex: 62 (Seen: 119)
Party: Growlithe lv31, Blastoise lv42, Katamari (Meowth) lv36, Gengar lv48, Fearow lv21, Snorlax lv43

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

The Cinnabar Gym is locked up tight. Not much to puzzle out though; there's only one other structure in town, the mysterious Pokemon Mansion. So the key is inside there, duh. The Mansion's big deal is a bunch of shut doors that you need to hit the appropriate switch to open them. The switches are all embedded in Mewtwo statues, so it's just trial and error to open each door in turn and fully explore the ruins of the abandoned mansion.

There's also some leftover diary entries (isn't there always) that slowly reveal what actually went down that blew the place up. This is where those crazy scientists tried to clone a new Mew... and ended up birthing the sinister and superintelligent Mewtwo instead. Oh, science!

No Mewtwo to be found inside, though. If you'll recall from the cartoon, he went nuts and escaped. So all that's in here are a ton of Raticates and other opportunistic pokemon.

Upon finding the key, I lit into Gym Leader Blaine. This is pretty much the one gym where having started with a water-type is going to pay off big time. My Blastoise drenched all of Blaine's fire-types, as the rock-paper-scissors effect would demand.

What is more interesting is that as soon as you leave the Cinnabar Gym, good ol' Bill is outside waiting for you. As his urging, you both board a jetboat to a hitherto unknown chain of islands to the east. Seven of them, wonderfully named "One Island," "Two Island," etc. And you though Pacifidlog was a terrible name.

As soon as we landed, Bill went into tech geek mode with his buddy Celio, setting to work on networking the Islands' PC system with the mainland. I haven't talked to either of them since; I've been out exploring. These Islands are new to the LeafGreen/FireRed remakes, so, aside from some minor alterations, this is the first totally new portion of the game. One Island contains Mt. Ember, an active volcano hiding a Moltres at the top (caught him on my first attempt, after only a half dozen Ultra Balls!). Two Island has some batty old lady who wants to teach a special attack move to an undisclosed pokemon type, as well as a guy who lost his daughter. Her name is Lostette, which is almost too ludicrous to believe. She is believed to be on Three Island, so I'm heading there now.

As for new pokedex captures and evolutions, wandering around the Islands has netted me a Persian (yay, now I really don't have to evolve my beloved Meowth, who has picked up two more Nuggets since last post), a Poliwhirl, a Ponyta, a Rapidash, and a Magmar. Found a Ditto inside the Mansion. My Old Amber fossil contained an Aerodactyl. My Gengar is still leading the pack, but I've been trying to keep him aside so the rest of the squad can level up. I don't know what level Growlithes turn into Arcanines, but it better be soon.

And wow, all three legendary birds! They were a hell of a lot easier to grab than those Regis from Sapphire.

Time: 37:20
Badges: 7
Pokedex: 85 (Seen: 134)
Party: Growlithe lv43, Blastoise lv47, Katamari (Meowth) lv38, Gengar lv54, Gyarados lv34, Snorlax lv47

Been a while, I know. The truth is, I got caught up in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories and basically avoided LeafGreen for a time. As a general rule, I try to keep one active game per system - setting LeafGreen aside to play Kingdom Hearts was an anomaly, but it points to the lack of compelling content in LeafGreen. When I was deep in Sapphire, almost nothing could sway me from its grip (over 150 hours!) LeafGreen just sort of skates along in Sapphire's wake. In fact, I'm kind of steamrolling through LeafGreen now so I can get to Minish Cap.

Tri-Island recap. Lostette: Home. Islands' narrow-minded Kanto prejudice: eliminated. Pokemon PC storage system: Fixed. Me: Returned to Cinnabar.

Continuing on the continent's clockwise sweep, I swam north for a glorious return to Pallet Town. But I wasn't really interested in a homecoming; Pallet is a rural suburb of Viridian City, the true goal... for now the Gym is open.

After sabotaging his plans back in the Rocket Hideout, Giovanni goes back to his day job as a Gym Leader. I levelled him, and Blastoise's Surf did most of the work. We must have some kind of gentlemen's agreement, because I made no effort to tell the authorities that Viridian's Gym Leader is actually the leader of a notorious crime gang. I must have felt sorry for him since the battle was so one sided. The puzzle paths in his Gym are lame too.

After polishing Giovanni off and receiving my eight badge, I'm now equipped to head to Indigo Plateau for the ultimate championship challenge.

I guess this is intentional, but it sure seems inconvenient. The only way to Indigo Plateau and the Pokemon League headquarters is through a long empty forest path followed by a deep underground cave maze. The greenery section is devoid of conflict, but the cave - Victory Road - is the usual mess of wandering trainers and random battles. I did catch a wild Marowak and Sandshrew though.

There's more boulder-shoving inside Victory Road, and judging by the number of trainers apparantly lost inside the maze, I have to wonder why the League doesn't just bulldoze a tunnel straight through. I guess it keeps out the riff-raff. The notion must be solid, for both Johto and Hoenn have since adopted the big obnoxious cave for their own League building front yards.

Now is when I need to consider who will be on my winning team. The Blastoise and Gengar are a given. The Growlithe (evolve already!) and the Snorlax are likely. I may keep the Gyarados in for some easy EXP so I can push him to higher levels. My trusty Meowth is out, however. His role is that of sneakthief and cutpurse, not as a champion battler.

So who to bring in? One of the Legendary Birds seems obvious as they are all at level 50. The next closest fighters currently lounging in storage are the Marowak and Sandslash I just caught, both in their mid-40s. Like the Gyarados, I have a bunch of pokemon in the upper 30s waiting for a chance to shine: a Machamp, Persian, Weepinbell, Rapidash, Tentacruel and Magmar.

Given that I'm committing to a water-type (Blastoise), fire-type (Growlithe), ghost-type (Gengar), and the big normal-type staller Snorlax, it may be wise to throw in the grass-type Weepinbell instead of my Meowth... and then either stick with Gyarados for his dragon-type attacks or dump him for a total weenie who I want to evolve. Or forget about the weaker guys and fill out the roster with the Zapdos and Articuno... but it seems cheesy to rely on the Birds to carry me through the Championship since I've done nothing with them up to this point. We'll see how the battles go before I call on the Birds to bail me out. If this League runs like the previous Elite Four sequences in other games, I won't hit real trouble until halfway to two-thirds through.

Time: 41:26
Badges: 8
Pokedex: 89 (Seen: 137)
Party: Growlithe lv47, Blastoise lv54, Katamari (Meowth) lv39, Gengar lv59, Gyarados lv38, Snorlax lv49

I think the Elite Four battle took me an hour, maybe an hour and a half. That's one time through, no restarts. The Four consists of Lorelei, Bruno, Agatha and Lance. As I expected, the Agatha battle was the first difficult one.

I ended the internal debate on which fighters to register by splitting the difference: Gyarados would be my EXP-receiving chump and Zapdos would fill out the 6th slot as additional high-level insurance. Every single opposing pokemon in the Elite Four is above level 50, going up as high as level 60. So my team entered a little below that average. Yeah, my Blastoise and Gengar are beefy battlers, but the rest all centered around 50 (with that young Gyarados checking in around 40). So I had to be ready with some good items in backup: Revive, Full Restore, Max Potion, and my favorite health item: Fresh Water.

Lorelei was not much of an issue at all. I toyed with her for a while before sending in my Gengar to finish her off. Bruno was even less of a challenge... Surf, Surf, Surf. Agatha's annoying evasive Gengar and confusion attacks can get tiresome. I think the secret is to bash out her first Gengar as quickly as possible, so it doesn't have to confuse you and get so quick that it avoids all your later attacks. Lance wasn't too bad, another casualty to my heavy hitters.

Then I faced the League Champion, none other than Liquid. He fielded a Venusaur, Pidgeot, Rhydon, Arcanine, Alakazam and Gyarados. Growlithe Flamethrowered the Venusaur. Gengar flattened the Alakazam in one hit (Shadow Ball). Blastoise Surfed over the Arcanine. The rest were taken out by some big attacks, plus using a Resting Snorlax to stall for time to heal up the damage.

The battle ended and Liquid gave the usual "I can't believe you beat me!" speech... then Professor Oak dashes in and proceeds to give Liquid a brow-beating on how to treat pokemon with love and kindness. On his way out, Liquid references going to One Island, a veiled hint that you should also go there once the credits finish rolling.

Here's my winning team. In retrospect, the Zapdos was a cheap throw-in. I used his Thunder Wave to paralyze a couple guys, and his Fly attack here and there... but other than that, he was barely touched. I'm always very personal with my pokemon, favoring those I've spent more time with... so Zapdos (whom I caught at level 50) felt like a ringer.

Growlithe level 50	Blastoise level 57	Gengar level 62	Gyarados level 41	Snorlax level 50	Zapdos level 51

Oh, duh. Growlithe requires the Fire Stone to evolve. FR/LG have a ton of pokemon who evolve with the various elemental stones - including Eevee - so you can actually buy Stones at the Celadon Department Store for a reasonable price.

So now for the traditional Pokemon Second Quest. This time we venture back out to the Island chain (as Liquid suggested). I'm annoyed he's still a part of the game; I'd prefer he slink back off into the darkness. I've already checked in with Celio on One Island. He wants a Ruby, for use in a piece of tech that will enable "pokemon trading with people far away." Now, we're not jumping on a wi-fi hotspot anytime soon, so Celio must be referring to activating link trades with Ruby/Sapphire. I'm hoping against hope that I can dredge up a Dragon Scale here in LeafGreen, so I can use that to evolve myself a Kingdra to trade back into Sapphire.

Time: 45:46
Badges: 8
Pokedex: 90 (Seen: 142)
Party: Growlithe lv50, Weepinbell lv40, Katamari (Meowth) lv39, Gengar lv63, Poliwhirl lv26, Zapdos lv51

I realize it's been a while since I last played any of my Pokemon games... but I mysteriously picked them back up a couple days ago.

The thing is, LeafGreen / FireRed is lame, a shoved-out-the-door remake that runs a far distant second to Ruby / Sapphire. Once I realized that, the game lost much of its spark. The Sevii Islands mini-quest that follows the main game wasn't doing much for me, a meandering jaunt chiefly ventured to activate R/S and LG/FR trading... a reward that's more trouble than it's worth if you're not planning on playing LeafGreen much.

So when I picked up a Pokemon game again, it wasn't LeafGreen, it was good ol' Sapphire. I had never evolved one of those awful Feebi into a Milotic, so I planted some berries and nursed that for a while. Turns out, I didn't need the extra berries, since I had already maxed out the Feebas' beauty stat before I stopped playing. That's the thing with Pokemon games. They're so deep that it's tough to remember what you did if you step away for a while.

So, in short order, lv 20 Milotic. Pokedex +1, back in the box. Then I remembered that I had traded my Sealeo over to Ruby so it would evolve up to a Walrein faster, so I pulled him back over. Pokedex +1. Then I sent my Snorunt over to Ruby for a quick run up to a Glalie. Pokedex +1. Then, still in Ruby, I polished off the Abandoned Ship Scanner sidemission for the deepseascale that you use to evolve a Clamperl into a Gorebyss. Pokedex +1.

That left me with a handful of missing monsters, but with the wily Kingdra leading the pack. My frustration with netting a dragon scale has already been well documented... and lest you doubt how much time I wasted hunting Horseas and Bagons, here's a shot from my Pokemon Box storage facility where I dumped all the useless pokemon overflow.

So I googled for "dragon scale leafgreen" in a final act of desparation. A LeafGreen walkthrough popped up. Yes, there is an easily found dragon scale in LeafGreen... and it was mere yards from where I had given up on the Sevii Islands quest! Unbefrickinlievable.

I clicked through a little further into the LeafGreen guide and saw that, once you finish the Sevii Islands mess, you can enter Cerulean Cave and take on a Mewtwo. Now we're talking. Armed with a Master Ball, I confronted the renegade Mewtwo and made him my own... just as I did in Pokemon Yellow five years ago. Then I made Mewtwo hold the damn dragon scale and sent him over to Sapphire.

One trade later and I finally have a Kingdra in my Sapphire Pokedex. What a pain.

Now that I've mined all the required types from Ruby - Groudon, Gorebyss, Armaldo, etc etc - it's time to reboot Ruby so I can generate the final monsters I need for Sapphire: Torchic and Mudkip. Of course, I had severe misgivings about restarting my Ruby cart, because the game is loaded with items and monsters that I would like to keep... so I travelled back into Nintendo's lost land of GBA/GameCube connectivity and stashed everything in my Pokemon Box. This was quite a ordeal. First I made each Ruby pokemon hold something I wanted to keep... some cool TMs, Ultra Balls, rare items... then I put them all in the Box. Then I sent them all into Sapphire and took the items. Since Ruby had more items than pokemon, I had to do this a couple times to get everything I wanted. Took a bit of time, I can tell you.

But now I'm ready to reboot Ruby and start a fresh game with a Mudkip so I can trade it over to Sapphire. Of course, I'm a little exhausted by the whole affair, so it might be a while.

So back to Sapphire stats (the heck with LeafGreen):
Time: 157:45
Badges: 8
Pokedex: 201 (Seen: 202)
Party: Razorbeak (Swellow) lv64, Groudon lv47, Mewtwo lv70, Golduck lv58, Egg (which better be a Torchic), Egg (another old gift from Pokemon Box)

A final note. You can't just empty out a Pokemon cartridge, you have to leave at least one pokemon in your party. So please join me in saying farewell to a lv 16 Machop, the unlucky soul who drew the short straw in the big raffle of who gets to stay on the game before it gets rebooted. Sorry kid.

Yesterday we drove out to the King of Prussia Mall (just west of Philly) for the Pokemon Journey Across America mall tour! For the non-fans out there, the mall tour is a regular goodwill event, where Nintendo gives out free poke-junk and solicits people to compete for slots in a national Pokemon video game tournament. This tour also celebrates Pokemon's 10th Anniversary.

This year, the key event is the free download of certain types of Pokemon into your cartridges, Celebi being the super-rare one. You can also select any two from a list of twenty, the "Top 20" chosen from an online poll.

We didn't know what to expect, in terms of attendance. Turns out, it was a freaking zoo. But it's cool to see hard, irrefutable evidence that the "fad" is far from over. Pokemon still rocks.

The above picture is the end of the Celebi line when we got there. In the dead center of the photo, you can just make out some flatscreens showing a Pokemon video. That is more or less the head of the line. Once you get there, you hand over your GBA and games to some semi-surly temp staff, who plug you into some great amazing Celebi server (actually just another GBA) and magically force the creature into your game. I received a level 70 Celebi for my Sapphire and my LeafGreen! Whoo!

It's really not that big a deal, except that there's no other way to get a Celebi, unless you have a cheater box. In fact, the Pokemon website makes a stink that you can't receive any of these downloads if your cartridge has been "altered" in some way by such devices. I would have liked to see that tested... because I saw a ton of kids there, and I highly doubt they all had un-cheated Pokemon games. No way.

So bit of a wait there, maybe 40 minutes? I forget. But this wasn't even the long line. The Top 20 line actually twisted outside of the mall. I'm italicizing that so you get how awful that is. That one had to be a 90 minute wait, so we passed. Besides the Top 20 list includes mostly pokemon that you can find in the games anyway (like Pikachu, for crying out loud), which makes me wonder who voted. Kids who don't even own the game?

Meeting Munchlax was a high point for Clark. As soon as he saw the costumed characters, he started pointing and getting all excited. Notice that I tried my damnedest to NOT go super-geek and wear one of my Nintendo-themed t-shirts. (Had I remembered I had it, I probably would have worn my Camp Hyrule 2005 Champion t-shirt. Cabin 9 forever!)

I'm a sucker for big props. Here's Ruby/Sapphire starters Mudkip, Torchic and Treeko. The best part is the Pikachu-brand stanchioning. "Stay the hell back kids! Pika pika!"

You know, I am all for cosplay. Which right away puts me in a noble minority. But this was not cool at all. I was coincidentally lining up a shot of the mess at the epicenter of all the lines, which a big fat dude dressed up like Jessie ambled into the picture. Jessie. The female member of Team Rocket.

I award big points for chutzpah. But I must take away points for showing up alone, gross, and in drag. I've seen some scary stuff at Origins, but this takes the cake and hits it with a semi.

When you're into cosplay, it's not just about getting a costume. You have to have some awareness of your body type or you risk looking like a big fat idiot. Just because you have the passion doesn't mean you should start sewing together the spandex.

Had this guy put together a Snorlax costume, he would have been the belle of the ball. Instead, he just had parents shying their kids away from him for the day. Keep your neuroses private, man. At home, be Jessie. Own Jessie. Do the chant. In public? Try not to look like a sex offender.

But on to stuff your eyeballs might actually want to see: me, Clark and Pikachu. I've already decided this will be Clark's first memory.

Not only were the lines to get FREE stuff atrocious... there was also a painful wait to BUY stuff. I don't know if this is the usual decision, but the Official Merchandise was stashed in a single 3'x6' kiosk, with an hour wait circling it like a funnel cloud. Couldn't we have tagged another kiosk somewhere for this? Were we not expecting the massive turnout?

I will say this: everybody we saw who waited and bought stuff... bought a ton of said stuff. At least $60 worth. If you wait long enough, you must have to buy more to compensate. We skipped this line as well. Everything at the kiosk looked like junk I've seen at the online store anyway.

Here's the Top 20 download station, the enormo-line we avoided. No doubt the reason why this line was so offensively long was because you have kids up there going through extreme mental torment trying to decide which two pokemon they want. Entei and Zapdos? No... Alakazam and Espeon? No... Absol and Tyranitar? What a freaking nightmare.

The only other thing we did (aside from grabbing a free goodie bag with a Pikachu promo card) is get official Trainer Certificates for me and Clark. The certificates state that you are an official Trainer, as of your tenth birthday. Which is accurate... in the world of Pokemon, kids are allowed to elect to become Trainers when they turn ten. And roam the continent unchaperoned. So Clark's certificate gives him that right in the year 2015, while mine says I've been legit since 1984.

This sign shows four pokemon that are so astonishingly powerful, that you couldn't use them in the tournament. I was not entered in the tourney, but I believe it was set up so that you would plug your GBA (with your chosen team of hand-trained combatants) into a GameCube for a one-on-one match with your opponent. I would have liked to watch some of that, but it was such a disaster area that it was no fun to try to hover around ground zero. I don't know if other stops on the tour were better organized, but the King of Prussia mall really isn't well suited for this kind of thing. Not enough central space; it's too hallway-centric.

A grand time, all in all. Especially when you looked around and saw GBAs and DSs every five feet. I should have busted out the Lite and went looking for random games to join.

Getting the Celebi download sparked my interest in playing Pokemon again, but that will be a future entry!

As I mentioned last time, attending the Pokemon Rocks World Forever Blitz Reunion Tour inspired me to finally make good on "beating" Pokemon Sapphire. IE, it was time to Catch 'Em All.

This required two Ruby reboots (because my original Ruby game was already way past the starter types). Luckily, you can trade pokemon between games after about 15 minutes of play, so it was short work to generate a Mudkip and a Torchic.

Somehow, I already had the final evolutions of both of those. This was probably due to some trade finagling with fellow trainers - trade me a Swampert and I'll trade him right back! - that sort of trick. So I just had to run the young Torchic and Mudkip around in my party for a bit so they would evolve into their middle level monsters.

Then came the disappointment.

You'll recall a hotel in Lilycove City ("Remember us as COVE LILY of LILYCOVE," the sign reads.) The game's designers like to hide themselves into each Pokemon game, and this hotel is their home in the R/S line. Early in the game, if you talk to these guys, they'll say something like "You're working on a pokedex! Great! Come see us when you have it finished!"

And you're like, shyeah, when it's finished.

But at last, after completing the pokedex due to my own hard work and well-orchestrated trades, it was time to see the Game Freak team and show off my completed Hoenn Pokedex.

Sorry for the crappy picture. I was at work when I did this and did not have my good camera nearby.

What that says is "This Pokedex is completely filled! You must really love Pokemon!"

Then he says "I want to give you something!" And you're all quivery with excitement...

"This document certifies that you have successfully completed your Pokedex."

This is IT?!?! This is all I get for catching over 200 different species of pokemon? I honestly was expecting the guy to give me some kind of special boat pass so I could go catch Deoxys or something equally cool. You don't even get a mention on your Trainer Card.

Nope. Here's a certificate. Hope ya had fun, kid. That'll teach me to not look this kind of junk up online first.

What is it with Nintendo refusing to reward players for extreme diligence?

Time: 158:52
Badges: 8
Pokedex: 205 (Seen: 205) (including Celebi!)
Party: Marshtomp lv16, Tropius lv31, Golduck lv58, egg, egg

Apparently in celebration of the release of a new Pokemon movie DVD, today was the day you could receive a free Mew download into your Pokemon GBA games, EXCLUSIVELY at Toys R Us. This has to be the widest Mew distribution that Nintendo has ever attempted, since previous Mew-fests were at far more limited locales.

I was fairly convinced that my local TRU would bone this, so I called them around 10:30am to see if they had any idea what was going on.

Me: "Hi. I was wondering if you were doing a Pokemon event today, where you can download something in your game?" Note the simplified language at work here. No mention of "Mew" or anything too specific. I even began the sentence with the vague phrase "Pokemon event," so I could set up his or her little mind for the true question in the second half. I did, however, insist on pronouncing "Pokemon" correctly... although I considered the more popular long-E slang on the grounds that it might make it easier for the store to parse my request.

Them: "Yes, sir, we are." Egad! An immediate affirmation! This is unexpected!

Me: "Is there any set time that you're doing it?" I had discovered an online rumor last night that they would only be giving out Mews from twelve to three, and, mysteriously, "while supplies last."

Them: "Ummmm... it says between twelve and three."

That's actually a really terrible time, since it matches up almost exactly with Clark's afternoon nap, but I figure it will take about ten minutes, so we saddle our horses and ride. That's Clark with my GBA and Pokemon cartridges just before we left. He opened up a wide grin about .0001 seconds later.

We landed at Toys R Us almost right at noon. Turns out, it's Geoffrey's Birthday Party Weekend, so the place is mad with people and there are activity stations and free giveaways all over the place.

There are no signs to direct eager Pokemon Trainers. Two years ago, during the Toys R Us Trade and Battle Day, they had the demo unit just sitting at the customer service desk and I had to go ask about it. So naturally I'm counting on me being the only person here and it will be a repeat of September 2004. ...Holy crap, that was two years ago?!

Against all odds, we run smack into a kids parade, led by Geoffrey himself. Rhon takes Clark over to meet the giraffe, who, as a costumed character, is far creepier now than he ever was when he was a cartoon creature. The costume looks like a real giraffe head with a human body. It's some kind of a sick evolutionary parody. But I digress. While they ran to join the parade around the store, I turned towards the game aisle and found this:

A line. I file in right away, even though it could well be a queue to receive a free sheet of Ninja Turtle stickers, the way things are going around here.

I snapped that shot almost as soon as I fell in, just after noon. Note that time, because it will be important later. The end of the line is at the end of the Nintendo aisle, pretty much at the center of the picture. I do love these Vanishing Point shots.

Hilariously, a mom three people ahead of me turns around to ask why we're all in line, and that's when I get the third-party verification that this is indeed the Mew Queue. The two slack-jawed miscreants in the tan and black belong to her; they kept a very low profile while waiting, no doubt supremely embarrassed by their private vices being made so public. Staring at Forza Motorsport probably helped.

What is up with that ancient Xbox demo unit? Are we ever going to get a 360 kiosk out here in the sticks?

I got to know the two people in front of me pretty well, or as well as you're ever going to get to know some random strangers in line to download a rare breed of pokemon on a rainy Saturday morning. Right in front of me is a mom in her mid-40's who is holding a second place in line for her 8-year old son (who is about ten people ahead of us). She is super-cool about it and surprisingly knowledgeable about the whole Pokemon thang. She gets it. They have every single game and she mentions how much she likes that the cartoon delivers cool messages (friendship, hard work, good choices) and how the card game has helped his reading comprehension. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the timeline here, the first Pokemon video game came out two years before her son was even born.

Right in front of her is a guy who is maybe in his mid-20s. He is alone. He remarks right away that my presence in line makes him feel less stupid. This dude is hardcore. We start "talking shop," and I can barely keep up. I bring up the Mall Tour where I downloaded Celebi and he is appalled that I haven't bothered to do anything with it yet. He works in the TV department of Sears and is going to be late for his shift, thanks to this sloooow-moving line. He figures his co-workers will consider him incredibly retarded over this, so when he calls in to ask them to cover, he says that he "has some stuff to do."

The line is barely moving, in part due to most people showing up with multiple cartridges, but mainly because the patented Pokemon trading sequence is egregiously long and not at all suited to events like this. My new pals and I remark how much easier this will all be once the DS version comes out and we can just WiFi the download.

It takes me 90 minutes to get to the finish line. 90 minutes to walk up one aisle.

Unlike the Mall Tour, where you brought your game and the handler plugged you into some kind of infinite-Celebi-generator, this giveaway runs the old fashioned way. You need to actually trade something out to the clerk to receive the Mew. Fortunately, I anticipated this and caught some crappy low-level fodder last night. I don't know if everyone else in line was as informed. In fact, one kid bought a copy of Pokemon Emerald while in line and immediately set to playing it so he could get the game up to the point where he could receive the download. (Which, my hardcore friend suggested, would probably take the kid 26 hours.)

This does explain the "while supplies last" caveat. The store just has a normal copy of some Pokemon game that Nintendo thoughtfully filled with Mews. When the clerk trades out the last Mew in the supply, that's it. Event over.

Although I brought Sapphire, Ruby and LeafGreen, I only got a Mew for Sapphire and LeafGreen. I had been there long enough and we needed to get Clark out of there.

Rhonda was awfully glad that TRU timed the Mew thing during the big birthday sale, because that gave her plenty of options for keeping Clark busy. He grabbed lots of free junk and shook Geoffrey's hand three times. Of course, his scheduled lunch and nap time was totally grenaded, but he bounced back by sleeping until 4:30pm.

Some of the people in line were convinced that the Mew download will continue tomorrow, because the birthday party thing goes all weekend. We may stop by, but I doubt this is the case.

Just as at the Philly Mall Tour, I have to marvel at the ongoing reach Pokemon maintains. Here was a ton of local people, waiting in a ridiculously unplanned line, to download rare bits for a GBA game that came out, at the earliest, two years ago. That is power, folks. That is what keeps Nintendo in the business. Awesomeness.

In case you're interested, the Mew shows up at level 10 and has Synchronize. His attacks are Pound and Transform. I remarked that I felt spoiled by receiving a kickass level 70 Celebi back at the Mall Tour, and my hardcore buddy said "No way, man. I like to train 'em up. I like them as low as possible, level 5."

Train on.