http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Semi daily fourhman.com newspost. en-us joe@fourhman.com 2006-09-30T23:56:30-05:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2006/09/mew-day-at-toys-r-us.html 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! 1145@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Pokemon LeafNotes 2006-09-30T23:56:30-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2006/07/the-worst-surprise-ever.html 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. 1088@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Pokemon LeafNotes 2006-07-25T00:00:11-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2006/07/pokemon-journey-across-america.html 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. 1082@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Pokemon LeafNotes 2006-07-13T22:18:07-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2005/09/pokemon-leafnotes-14.html 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. 850@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Pokemon LeafNotes 2005-09-07T22:52:46-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2005/02/pokemon-leafnotes-13.html 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. 744@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Pokemon LeafNotes 2005-02-21T21:57:16-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2005/02/pokemon-leafnotes-12.html 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. 731@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Pokemon LeafNotes 2005-02-06T01:55:33-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2004/12/pokemon-leafnotes-11.html 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! 695@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Pokemon LeafNotes 2004-12-14T23:14:35-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2004/12/pokemon-leafnotes-10.html 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. 689@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Pokemon LeafNotes 2004-12-07T23:43:32-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2004/11/pokemon-leafnotes-09.html 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. 678@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Pokemon LeafNotes 2004-11-26T11:44:36-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2004/11/pokemon-leafnotes-08.html 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. 670@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Pokemon LeafNotes 2004-11-07T18:35:46-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2004/10/pokemon-leafnotes-07.html 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. 664@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Pokemon LeafNotes 2004-10-24T01:05:03-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2004/10/pokemon-leafnotes-06.html 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. 657@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Pokemon LeafNotes 2004-10-07T00:08:23-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2004/09/pokemon-leafnotes-05.html 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? 652@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Pokemon LeafNotes 2004-09-26T11:06:07-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2004/09/pokemon-leafnotes-04.html 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. 648@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Pokemon LeafNotes 2004-09-21T23:45:49-05:00 http://www.fourhman.com/blog/archive/2004/09/pokemon-leafnotes-03.html 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. 640@http://www.fourhman.com/blog/ Pokemon LeafNotes 2004-09-15T22:25:25-05:00