Bench's Mainline Pokemon Retrospectives

[IFBench]

Mainline Pokemon, from the perspective of someone very new to it​

Hi! You probably recognize me from my Pokemon Mystery Dungeon fics, such as Eternal Shadows and A Comprehensive Guide to Items. I'm a big PMD fan, and haven't really done a lot with mainline Pokemon, aside from my fic In Tandem.

My passion lies with Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. I played Rescue Team DX, Explorers of Sky, Gates to Infinity, and Super all in a row back in late 2020, and I've been obsessed with them ever since.

So, what is this?
In short, I'm trying to play (almost) every single mainline Pokemon game.

Why, you may ask?

To put it simply, some of my friends were doing it, and I wanted to do it too.

Windskull boldly proclaimed that they would play every single mainline Pokemon game without reusing any Pokemon species. I decided to challenge myself to do a less strenuous challenge: play one mainline game for every mainline Pokemon region, but I can't use a guide. If I get stuck, I have to ask my friends for advice.

And so, here I am!

Here's the games I plan to play as part of this marathon:

Spoiler: Games

Firered
Soulsilver
Emerald
Alpha Sapphire
Colosseum
XD
Platinum
Black
Black 2
X
Sun
Ultra Moon
Let's Go Eevee
Shield + DLC
Legends Arceus (replaythrough)
Violet (replaythrough) + DLC
Legends ZA

As this is my first time playing almost all of these, I'm writing down my thoughts on these, in case anyone might find them interesting. The first four of these were initially posted on tumblr, then ported here.

I hope you all enjoy this! Feel free to respond with what you think!

 

[IFBench]

Pokemon Emerald Retrospective, from the perspective of a first-time mainline Pokemon player​

To preface this, before playing Emerald, I had very, very scarcely played mainline Pokemon. I played about 40 minutes of Soulsilver back in 2013, and played Legends Arceus and Violet to the credits in 2022, but not much else.

Why start with Emerald and not Firered? I don't quite remember. But it's where I started.

My first impressions were...rough.

It was slow, clunky, and a lot of stuff I was accustomed to through PMD, Legends Arceus, and Violet, simply weren't there.

Then I got the running shoes, and stuff began to pick up.

I picked Treecko, and named him Apoyime after my PMD Explorers protagonist. With his help, I was able to defeat Roxanne in one fell swoop, thanks to rock's grass weakness.

I caught two more Pokemon on the way there, a Zigzagoon I named Mavy, after the character from Quenched Torch, written by my best friend Sudmensch, and a Tailow I named Tilio.

With them, I made it through Granite Cave, and managed to do it without Flash! I also caught an Aron and named her Serald.

Brawly was more difficult than Roxanne, but thanks to Tilio, I managed to defeat him too.

Then there was Wattson.

Wattson was brutally difficult. I could often get to his Magneton, but every time I did, my team got curbstomped.

It was here that I started seeing the cracks in Emerald again.

You see, Emerald's EXP Share is extremely easy to miss, and doesn't apply EXP to the whole party. Instead, it just splits it between the Pokemon that participated...and one, single other Pokemon, that has to have the EXP Share as a held item.

I really, really hate grinding in games.

So, I visited the Game Corner, and tried to gamble my way to a Flamethrower TM for Mavy.

Even with using savestates for this specific occasion, though, it was a bust. The roulette tables were far too slow, and the slot machines were rigged.

So, I sighed, and decided to ride back and forth on my bike in front of the daycare in order to make number go up.

After hours of this, I managed to get my team up to a large enough level that I could finally, finally beat Wattson.

I decided to take a break for a few months after that ordeal, and resumed my playthrough in January.

And then, there were the HMs.

Before this, I didn't understand why everyone hates HMs so much. Now, I very much do understand why.

HMs force you to reserve either a party member slot for a Pokemon exclusively dedicated to HMs, or to use up move slots on your Pokemon on these moves that are often completely useless in battle.

I sighed, caught a Poochyena for Rock Smash, and named her Hiova.

I pressed onwards, fighting Team Magma atop Mount Chimney, then fighting Flannery in Lavaridge.

Flannery was also very difficult. I had to grind a bit more in order to defeat her, and at this point my patience was wearing thin. I was considering abandoning the marathon at this point.

Not helping this was the fact that the game was very unclear about where to go next. I thought I had to travel through the Route 111, but it was a dead end with nothing but the Mirage Tower.

I did catch a Trapinch here, though, and named her Raga after the Flygon from Tetra's fic Home is Where the Hoenn Is.

Eventually, a friend informed me that I should head back to Petalburg to face Norman, but that he'd be the biggest difficulty spike yet.

And so, I gave up. I turned on a cheat that gave me infinite rare candies, and leveled up my Pokemon that were lagging behind Apoyime.

And so, I took on Norman. It took two tries, but I managed to win!

I had already taught Strength and Shock Wave to Mavy, and decided to teach him Surf as well, making him the jack of all trades of my team.

Thinking it was the next objective, I explored the Abandoned Ship. It was fun, but I got little out of it.

I then saw Wattson wandering around in Mauville, and decided to talk to him, which granted me access to New Mauville.

Gotta say, it's a lot different in the game than it was in the Adventures manga, but it was still cool and fun, and the music gave me lots of inspiration.

Next up, I made my way to Fortree, and was stumped by the invisible blockade in front of the gym until a friend told me to go further, into Route 120.

After giggling a bit and making a bunch of PMD references from the invisible blockades being Kecleons, with the Devon Scope in hand, I returned to Fortree and took down Winona.

Next was Route 120 proper, which was a surreal experience. I had researched it a bit for my fic In Tandem, but playing through it was something else entirely. It was like childhood wonder.

Mount Pyre was really neat. Same music as New Mauville on the inside, which paired with the graves created a very eerie atmosphere.

But outside, there was a fast-paced track that got me feeling ready to take on both Team Aqua and Team Magma.

Then I made my way to Lilycove, where I decided to try a contest with Apoyime.

I failed miserably, getting last place.

And then Emerald stumped me with the most baffling detour yet.

The Aqua hideout was blocked, the ocean routes were blocked, it seemed like I had nowhere to go.

I wandered around for quite a while, until a friend told me that I had to go back to Mount Chimney of all places, and examine a random rock, now that I had the Magma emblem.

This was probably the point where I was angriest with Emerald. More than Wattson's difficulty spike. More than HMs. More than the lackluster EXP Share. More than having to grind.

But I took a deep breath, and pressed onwards.

The Magma Hideout was nothing special, but it got the plotline rolling! Seeing Groudon become active was so cool to see.

And from there, it was a straightforward trip back to Lilycove to infiltrate the Team Aqua hideout.

The Aqua hideout was some of the most fun I had in the game so far. The maze of warp tiles, combined with the great music, and even being able to find a master ball tucked away past a tricky set of warp panels, it all came together to form something very fun!

Then it was a simple surf to Mossdeep, and I battled the Magma grunts there.

After the battle alongside Steven, though, tragedy struck: Hiova turned into a Bad Egg, and I saved before I noticed.

I have no idea why this happened, but Hiova was gone.

After taking a moment of silence to both calm down and to grieve, I looked up what to do in the case of a bad egg.

I deposited the bad egg into the PC, turned off the infinite rare candy code, and went to Route 120 to fetch a new HM buddy, a Marill.

After that, I went back to Mossdeep, and defeated Tate and Liza.

Next up, I began searching for the Deepsea Cave. It was a difficult search, and I managed to find Sootopolis City first, but eventually, I made it inside, and faced off against the evil teams of Hoenn one last time.

With Groudon and Kyogre both awake and both fighting, and after consulting Wallace, I made my way to Sky Pillar.

And...Rayquaza flew out without me fighting it at all. I was honestly kinda disappointed.

After making my way back to Sootopolis, Rayquaza stopped Kyogre and Groudon's warring in a really cool cutscene, and the main plot of the game was over.

But mainline Pokemon is weird. Unlike PMD, the game doesn't end when the plot ends. Instead, there's still the gym, Elite Four, and champion to go.

And so, I battled Juan, and won.

Next up was Ever Grande City, which, side note, really didn't live up to expectations. I was expecting a city as grand as the name implied, but all it was was a Pokemon Center, Victory Road, and the Pokemon League.

Speaking of Victory Road, it was a nightmare to navigate, especially with no Flash and no guide. It took me quite a while to get through it, but eventually, I made it to the Pokemon League.

It felt so tense going inside. I was about to face a gauntlet of the five toughest trainers in the main game, with no Pokemon Centers in between. This was it, my sea of time in Hoenn.

Sidney was relatively easy, but that relatively is doing a lot of work. He still nearly took down Raga and Serald, but I managed.

Phoebe was tough. Her Banette's Curse took down Raga, and she left most of the rest of my team with low health, but I won. Using a revive on Raga, and restoring everyone's HP, I pressed on.

Glacia was easier, about the same level as Sidney, but still nearly took down Serald, and dealt a hefty blow to Mavy as well. But I won.

I just had two trainers left, and this would be my toughest challenge yet.

Drake was brutal, as much as Wattson was. But I had come a long way since then. I just barely scraped by, with Mavy and Apoyime being the only members of my team not fainted when I took him down.

And then, after healing up my team, it was time for my final challenge.

Wallace was very difficult. Almost all his Pokemon were of higher level than most of mine, with his Milotic matching Apoyime's level. And with the move Recover? That Milotic was very, very difficult to defeat.

But I pulled through. I won. I made it into the Hall of Fame.

I consider that one of my greatest accomplishments I've ever done in a video game, up there with beating Champion's Road from Super Mario 3D World solo.

It was tricky. It was brutal. But I did it.

Maybe I'm just bad at mainline Pokemon, but I'm proud.

Emerald, while not my favorite, was mostly a great experience to play through for the first time.

However, it had its flaws. HMs, lack of directions, and grinding made some parts of it a slog.

Overall, though, I enjoyed it, and it was a fantastic start to my mainline Pokemon marathon.

Hoenn is now one of my favorite Pokemon regions.

 

[IFBench]

Pokemon X Retrospective, from the perspective of someone playing it 10 years late.​

To preface this, I didn't start X immediately after Emerald. I actually started Sun next, and switched between that, Shield, and Firered for a while.

Then I got to the broken golf clubs house, decided that that was enough Sun for now, and started X.

I was not expecting to like Pokemon X as much as I did.

During the past 10 years I've been on the internet, I kept hearing about how Kalos is terrible.

And their opinions are perfectly valid.

But me, personally? I had so much fun with Kalos!

But let's start from the beginning. Where a young kid has just moved to Vaniville Town.

Octagonal movement was very strange to start with, but very welcome. No longer was I constrained to the four cardinal directions, now I could move in diagonals!

I knew the basic plot beats of Kalos thanks to fandom osmosis, but it was still a delight meeting the Kalos friends for the first time. Shauna, Tierno, and Trevor are all a delight, and I just wish we got to see more of them.

I picked Fennekin, and named him Mulbo, after a friend's character, Mulberry the former human Fennekin.

Santalune Forest was a very refreshing change of pace from other earlygame forests. Unlike Petalburg Woods, Viridian Forest, or even Slumbering Weald, it doesn't feel lonely. You have companions who are alongside you, doing their own things. I really appreciated this segment, and it felt welcoming, like it was beckoning me towards a new adventure.

I caught a Fletchling near this area, and named her Igailba after another friend's character, Abigail the former human Fletchling.

Then I got the roller skates, and let me tell you, I almost never took them off.

It was so much fun to skate around with the circle pad. Octagonal movement had its time in the sun, now was time for smooth and fast 360 degree movement.

The first gym took full advantage of the new 3D movement. It was fun traveling across the web, even if I quickly figured out that the water droplets marked the correct path. And Viola was a piece of cake.

Around this time, I started looking into the stuff on the bottom screen. The PSS was pretty much useless to me, but Poke-Amie and Super Training were both really cool!

Poke-Amie gave me something I always wanted: To pet a Pokemon. It wasn't quite the same to do it through a screen, but it was still wonderful nonetheless.

The minigames were neat too! Berry Picker was neat, though it got pretty tricky towards the end. Head It I failed miserably at, only managing to do the giant yarn ball at the end. And Tile Puzzle was, well, a fun tile puzzle!

Super Training was a fun minigame, though I only ever did the two tutorials for the giant balloon robots part. Instead, I mostly focused on the punching bags. There's a wide variety of them, and I had fun using them to boost my Pokemon's stats.

Back to the main game, I continued onwards to Lumiose City, and seeing it for the first time took my breath away. It was a massive, sprawling city, with multiple different sections. It was amazing.

Of course, I could only access the south boulevard to start, and so I made my way to Professor Sycamore's lab.

I have a confession to make: I don't really like the final evolutions of the Kanto starters, besides Charizard. Blastoise feels like a disappointment after the awesome design of Wartortle, and I just. Didn't like the Bulbasaur line much.

But I had already chosen Charmander in Firered, and gotten Squirtle in Shield, so I went with Bulbasaur, naming him Boler.

It was off to Camphrier Town next, and I really appreciate the NPC who said that the castle was a "whole one percent". Gave me a good chuckle.

After seeing how barren the castle was, my next stop was Parfum Palace. It really captured a rich, snobby vibe. Cornering the runaway Furfrou was fun, but I felt bad afterwards after hearing how the owner of the palace treats it. I caught a Furfrou on the way back from the palace, and pretended it was the same Furfrou, running away from the palace. I named her Cossupa.

The Snorlax fight was tough, but I managed to pull through thanks to Igailba, HP manipulation with an oran berry, and the move Flail.

The Battle Chateau was a fun concept! I giggled a bit at being declared nobility just for stepping inside.

Something I really like about Kalos is how its Pokedex is split up. There's the Central, Coastal, and Mountain dexes, and it makes it much less intimidating to try to complete the dexes.

It was initially pretty cool to ride around on a Rhydon, but it grew tedious pretty quickly. Thankfully, the ride to Glittering Cave wasn't long.

The maze within the cave was neat! It wasn't anything special, but I still enjoyed it.

And then we have the first encounter with Team Flare.

I...honestly don't know what to say here. They exist?

I'm just going to leave it at that for now. They exist.

Anyways, I made my way back, climbed down the cliffs, and got the Dowsing Machine.

This little device was a genius idea. No more having to worry about having to check literally everywhere for hidden items, but instead I could just pull out this device, and play a nice little game of hot and cold.

It was here where I found out that I could have multiple items on quick select, and I am so grateful for that.

Cyllage City was next, and I had some fun on the bike course, before heading to fight Grant.

Grant was tough. My team wasn't built for him. But with poison strats thanks to Boler, I pulled through after a few tries.

Then there was Route 10. It was haunting, knowing what those stones really were. And the NPC who said, "They're just stones"...it made me shiver.

Geosenge Town was similarly haunting, with my knowledge of what slept underneath. It was enough to make me want to leave as soon as possible.

Reflection Cave had a fun gimmick of trainers looking away from you, but still spotting you thanks to the reflective cave walls. It was neat, but the constant battles were starting to tire me.

But before long, I made it to Shalour.

Shalour was neat! It was so cool seeing the Tower of Mastery in the distance.

But first up was defeating Korrina. Her gym trainers were tough, especially that Hariyama with Knock Off. But once I got to Korrina herself, I managed to secure a victory.

The Tower of Mastery was so cool to climb, and atop, was the final battle with Korrina, and the introduction of Mega Evolution.

I can see why people love Mega Evolution now. That was so cool.

With a new team member in tow, Lurolin the Lucario, I set out once more, and was immediately gifted a Lapras, filling the last spot on my team. I named them Hidlan. I'm a PMD fan, what can I say.

Side note, I love how HMs are completely optional in X, with the exception of Surf and maybe Strength. Both being the rare actually good HM move.

Next was Coumarine City, and honestly? Ramos' gym trainers presented far more of a challenge than Ramos himself did. Once I made it to Ramos himself, it was an easy victory.

Then I headed into the Lumiose Badlands, Route 13.

This place is my least favorite in the entire game.

The wind pushes you everywhere, making it hard to skate around. The rails don't work well with the wind, with me hopping off automatically at the little indents. And there are so many Pokemon here with the Arena Trap ability.

What's worse, the Team Flare grunt who battles you here is blocking the way to the Power Plant, so I tried every other metal door around here to no avail, before I learned I could skate past the grunt.

But as a reward for my efforts, I made it into the Kalos Power Plant, with its amazing music.

Was a bit disappointed that the Team Flare scientists didn't have unique music, but oh well. It was fun.

And then I encountered AZ. I knew from friends that he was tall, but I wasn't expecting him to be that tall!

With that out of the way, though, Lumiose City was open for me to explore!

I immediately tried to find the ghost.

After that, I took on Clemont's gym for an easy victory.

Next up was the route to Laverre City, and it was fun listening to the spooky story with the Kalos friends. And don't worry, I tipped the storyteller generously.

Laverre City was fantastic. I love its vibes! It felt almost PMD-like.

Valerie's gym was tricky. I didn't have any counters to fairy-types. But thanks to Mulbo and Cossupa, I pulled through.

The Pokeball Factory was fun! It was a nice puzzle dungeon with the conveyor belts.

Then I made my way to Anistar City, which. Wow.

The music, combined with the giant crystal, made for a strange, yet beautiful atomsphere.

Olympia was easy, though, thanks to Cossupa.

And then the Team Flare plot finale happens.

I'm. Still not sure what to say here. It happened? I liked the music.

I'll just skip ahead to the Xerneas battle.

Xerneas was so cool to see in-game. I managed to catch it first try, after whittling down its health to just a sliver, then using an Ultra Ball.

Lysandre's final battle was tough. The first opponent since Korrina to use Mega Evolution, I had very few counters to his Mega Gyrados. But Cossupa continues to be the MVP, and managed to take down Lysandre's Mega Pokemon.

Again, though, mainline Pokemon continues to defy logic, and doesn't place the plot finale with the main game finale. The credits don't roll until I defeat the champion.

Snowbelle City felt somber, lonely. Despite its bustling atmosphere, the music combined with the plot finale having just occured made it feel sad.
But it was no time for sadness, there was a place called Pokemon Village nearby that I was dying to visit.

After the mazelike Route on the way there, I arrived in Pokemon Village.

It...was cute, but I was expecting something more PMD-like.

But with Wulfric back at the gym, it was time to take him on.

And like he said, he was a total pushover.

With all eight badges under my belt, it was time to go to Victory Road, but not without one final interaction with the Kalos friends.

The three battles in a row against them were really fun! It was a great sendoff to some of my favorite rivals yet. I really wish we could have gotten to see more of them, though.

But now, it was time for Victory Road!

I didn't have to do this Victory Road basically blindfolded like I did Emerald's, but it was still very tough. I was so satisfied when I finally made it to the end.

But it wasn't quite the end yet. I had one more challenge: The Pokemon League.

Kalos' Pokemon League, as far as I know of the other games, is unique in that I could face the Elite Four in any order I wished.

So I decided to start with Wikstrom.

He was my toughest challenge yet, but thanks to Lurolin, I was able to defeat him.

I foolishly decided to do Siebold next.

I should not have done Siebold next.

Siebold had counters for every counter I had against Water, and he was a brutally difficult challenge that required both multiple tries, and for me to change my team's moveset a bit.

Eventually, though, I triumphed, and was in the home stretch.

After the ordeal that was Siebold, the other two were pushovers. Drasna barely got a hit in on my team, and Malva couldn't do much either.

Side note, was disappointed that Malva didn't really say much about Team Flare.

But after all that, it was time for the championship bout. Myself versus Diantha.

She wasn't nearly as difficult as Siebold, but she still took quite a bit of effort. Her Mega Gardevoir was tough, but Cossupa came in clutch as always, and thanks to her, I was victorious.

Furfrou rose quite a few ranks on my favorite Pokemon list after that.

But even after that, it wasn't quite over. I still had one last battle.

The battle against AZ was easy, but the emotion of it all was a fantastic atmosphere.

And when I reached the often-memed scene, of it being 3000 years...I did shed a few tears.

I had completed Pokemon X.

I love this game, despite it all. It was so much fun, even with a few hiccups on the way from start to finish.

I actually think I might like it even more than Emerald, thanks to the lack of grinding.

I think I will do the postgame for this one. Eventually.

Kalos is cool, and I can't wait for Legends ZA now.

 

[IFBench]

Pokemon Firered Retrospective, from the perspective of someone whose primary experience with Kanto was Pokespe​

To preface this, I have never seen Kanto outside of Pokespe, and brief clips from stuff like "Beating Pokemon without getting hit" or Pikasprey's softlock videos. I knew the general story of it, but I didn't know the details.

Pokemon Firered was one of the most mixed quality gaming experiences I've had in recent memory.

It was mostly fun, sure, but I had to take extensive measures in order to make it not unbearable.

I chose Charmander as my starter, named him Burhalla, and caught a Pidgey and Ratatta on Route 1. I named them Linne and Jifa respectively. Jifa would become my HM buddy.

First few routes weren't too bad...until I made it to Brock.

Then everything went downhill.

Brock was brutal. His Onix was 3 levels higher than any I had encountered thus far, including his gym trainer. With both my main Pokemon weak to rock, and all of my attacks NFE against rock, it seemed like my only choice was to grind.

So I activated an infinite rare candy cheat instead, and leveled up Burhalla until he learned Metal Claw.

Even then, that wasn't quite enough. I had to level up him even further until he evolved into a Charmeleon, and then I finally beat Brock.

At this point, I was rather miffed, but I decided to press on. Maybe things would get better soon?

Mount Moon was fine. Not bad, not good, just...fine.

Then was Cerulean City, and Misty, who was my biggest roadblock in the entire run.

Burhalla was right out, leaving only Linne the Pidgey to battle her.

And it took so, so many tries. Even more than Brock.

But eventually, with the right luck, and the right timing of usage of healing items, Linne the Pidgeotto defeated Misty.

That battle tanked my enjoyment of Firered severely. It was frustrating, hard, and I began to start disliking Firered.

But I pressed onwards, up through Nugget Bridge (Which, I gotta say, I did not expect the nugget guy to be a Rocket grunt), to Bill's house.

It was cool seeing stuff from Pokespe in-game, like the stuff with Bill, but backtracking back across Route 25 was annoying.

Then there was the SS Anne.

It was a maze to navigate without a guide, and it got really frustrating.

But I continued pressing onwards, even as much as I was getting tired of Firered.

Surge was thankfully much easier than Misty or Brock, and I pressed onwards through Route 11.

Then I arrived at the sleeping Snorlax, realized I had no idea where to go or what to do from here, and gave up.

For over a month, I didn't touch Firered again. I played some X, some Sun, some Shield, and some Violet, but Firered was on hold.

After growing a bit bored with my Violet replaythrough, though, I decided to return to Firered. Maybe, with a month's break, it'd be less painful than I remembered.

First order of business was where to go next.

I asked for advice, and apparently I had to backtrack to Cerulean City to get to my next destination.

I made my way through Diglett's Cave to get back there, and caught my third team member: Dirir the Diglett.

And after taking the long way around, I finally went into the house at the top-right corner, and made my way across the northern edge of Kanto, Route 9.

Then was Rock Tunnel.

See, I hadn't gotten Flash. And I had no idea where it was.

So like with Emerald's Victory Road, I had to navigate through Rock Tunnel with extremely limited visibility. And I was going Repel-less as an additional challenge, since I was imagining that my protagonist was a Zorua.

Not an experience I wish to repeat. But eventually, I made it to Lavender Town.

Lavender Town was both unlike and yet exactly like the stories I've heard of it. It was spooky, creepy, and eeire, but I felt safe, and the music felt calming instead of terrifying.

Perhaps it was simply that I had simply outgrown creepypastas? Or maybe it was just that my interests had shifted, or my standards had changed. I did attempt writing a PMD creepypasta once, after all.

Whatever the case was, I didn't spend too much time in Lavender Town. I remembered from a small clip I saw years ago, that I needed a Silph Scope in order to make it up the Pokemon Tower.

So I set out west, towards Celadon City, in search of the Silph Scope, and perhaps a new friend or two.

After passing through yet another underground tunnel that bypassed Saffron City, I was beginning to suspect that perhaps something similar to the manga was happening: A psychic bubble that enveloped Saffron City, preventing anyone from entering.

But soon I made it to Celadon City, the home of Kanto's Game Corner.

I had learned my lesson from Emerald: These places were rigged.

So I decided to cheat a little in turn.

You know how I had a ton of rare candies from the infinite rare candy cheat? I decided to sell about a hundred, so I could get one of the Game Corner prizes: A Dratini.

I had read a wonderful fic a long time ago called Dragon Dance, detailing Lance's rise to champion, and I decided to take inspiration from Lance freeing a Dratini from the Game Corner. I named them Darnod.

In flavor, I imagined this as busting up the Game Corner, freeing all the Pokemon, and a Dratini and Eevee follow my protagonist into the Rocket Hideout, becoming part of xyr team.

Yes, an Eevee too. I got the Eevee from the Celadon Department Store, and named them Voivick. I also acquired a water stone, and evolved Voivick into a Vaporeon.

Burhalla, Linne, Dirir, Voivick, Darnod, and Jifa would comprise my final Kanto team.

But before we get there, I had to infiltrate the Team Rocket Hideout.

I had heard of spin tiles before, from reading an Undertale AU sprite comic called Inverted Fate, but actually experiencing them was a fun puzzle! It was also silly watching my character spin around and around and around.

Eventually, I made it through the hideout, to Giovanni.

He was no slouch, and I had a pretty tough time with him! But thanks to my new team members, I pulled through, and acquired the Silph Scope.

After a quick detour to defeat Erika, who was a relatively easy opponent, I made my way back to Lavender Town.

Pokemon Tower was a bit more spooky than Lavender Town itself. It wasn't quite as terrifying as its manga incarnation, but still pretty eerie, especially with the possessed trainers, and the spell tag circle.

Soon, I made it to Marowak's ghost, and put the restless spirit to rest.

And after defeating a few Rocket grunts and rescuing Mr. Fuji, I obtained the pokeflute. Finally, I could bypass the Snorlax that had frustrated me into giving up for a month.

I went south from Lavender Town, across the docks, and battled the Snorlax there. It was a tricky battle, but I eventually won.

The long walk to Fuchsia City was arduous, but before too long, I made it to the home of the Safari Zone.

I originally wasn't planning on going in, until I heard from a friend that I needed to go there to get an HM.

And so I went in, trying to find my way to the fabled house at the end of the Safari Zone.

It was tricky, but I found it, and someone's gold teeth while I was at it!

With my new HM in hand, I challenged Koga for my next badge. It was another tricky battle, but thankfully, none of my team were weak to poison.

Next...I went to Cycling Road, having no idea that I was going the complete wrong way.

Cycling Road, as far as I can tell, is meant to be ridden downhill. I went uphill.

I was very confused at first, but kept making my way up the now-tedious Cycling Road, and eventually came out the other side, now with HM Fly. No more backtracking for me, I could now quickly return to any Pokemon Center I've been to.

Then, finally, with nowhere else to go, it was time to enter Saffron City.

While there was no psychic bubble around the city like in the manga, the city was certainly overrun by Team Rocket.

And so, like Red, Blue, and Green did in the manga, it was finally time for me to storm Silph Co.

Silph Co was a maze. Over 10 different floors, each connected by warp tiles, with no indication of which ones led to the path forward.

It was brutally confusing, and filled to the brim with trainers itching for a battle.

But I eventually found the keycard, and navigated my way to the hidden side of the top floor. It was time to face Giovanni again.

He was just as tough as when I encountered him in the Rocket Hideout, but Voivick pulled through, and I acquired the master ball.

Compared to Giovanni, Sabrina was relatively easy, though still pretty difficult. I had to work for that win, but I got my sixth badge.

Then it was time for me to go Surfing, along the southern edge of Kanto.

The Seafoam Islands were a tricky puzzle to figure out. It took me a few rounds of falling through holes and climbing up ladders to realize that I had to use Strength to push boulders down the holes, and change the flow of the water.

Soon, though, I made it to Cinnabar Island...and was immediately taken from there to Firered and Leafgreen's exclusive sub-region, the reason I decided to play this before Let's Go: the Sevii Islands.

For the Sevii Islands, I had absolutely no idea what the game version was like. I hadn't even seen any snippets of footage about them. My only experience with them was the Firered and Leafgreen arc of Pokemon Adventures.

But this time, there were no repossessed pokedexes, or "three Team Rocket beasts". Instead, I simply had to go on a variety of fetch quests.
It wasn't anything too special, but I'm glad it was there. It was fun! And I look forward to returning here in the postgame someday, once I find the drive to catch enough Pokemon for the Rainbow Pass.

But that's for later. For now, having defeated a biker gang, I returned to Cinnabar Island. Before I could face the gym, though, I had to traverse through the decrepit Pokemon Mansion.

Pokemon Mansion was like Silph Co, only much smaller, but the random encounters, statue puzzles, and eerie atmosphere made it feel just as long.

This was where Team Rocket conducted many of their experiments. It was where Mewtwo was created. And it lived up to that atmosphere.

Although some of the journal entries clearly had some of the dubiously canon stuff from Pokemon's very early days, such as references to real-life locations.

Still very neat, though.

Blaine wasn't as difficult as Misty, but was much more difficult than Erika. He specialized in the same type as my starter: Fire.

But with help from Voivick, I defeated him, and got my seventh badge.

I had just one stop left before Victory Road: The very first gym I encountered, whose gym leader was absent for so long.

Viridian City's gym leader had finally returned, and I was going to take him on.

The gym puzzle was my favorite yet of Kanto's, with the combination of spin tiles and trainers creating a genuinely neat maze.

And then I made it to Giovanni, for our final battle...until Soulsilver, Ultra Moon, and Let's Go Eevee, at least.

This battle with him was the trickiest against him yet. It took several tries for me to win.

But win I did, and Team Rocket, supposedly, was no more.

With all eight Kanto badges under my belt, it was time to go to Victory Road.

Before that, though, another battle with Blue. It was another tough one, but then again, all the major battles at this point were tough.

The badge check gates were really cool! The only comparable one I had seen so far was in Kalos, as Hoenn didn't have any. And Kalos' was more just inscriptions of the badges on the walls. Still cool, but not like Kanto's.

And then it was time for Kanto's Victory Road, my third Victory Road.

It was tricky, but in a different way from Hoenn and Kalos'.

Hoenn's was a test of navigation. How well could I navigate this maze in near-complete darkness?

Kalos' was a test of strength. So many powerful trainers, with nowhere in between to heal besides usage of items.

Kanto's was much shorter than both, fully lit, and its trainers weren't as tough as Kalos', but what it lacked in navigation and strength, it made up for in puzzles and endurance.

There were boulders scattered around, and I had to maneuver them sokoban-style onto switches in order to progress.

Oh, and the entire thing was filled with random encounters. At this point, I gave up on the "no repels" rule, and bought a bunch of max repels for this.
It was tough. It was confusing. It was my final test before the Indigo Plateau.

And eventually, I passed the test, making it out.

All that was left, was five battles. The Elite Four, and the Champion. The toughest the Kanto region had to offer.

At this point, all my Pokemon were fully evolved, save for my HM buddy Jifa. I was functionally going into this gauntlet with five Pokemon.

But I had conquered Hoenn in a similar way. Five battlers, and an HM buddy. I had hope that I could do this.

Healing up, and stocking up on healing items, I proceeded towards my first of my final battles, against Lorelei.

It's been a while, so I don't quite remember how these battles went. I do remember, though, that even Burhalla's fire wasn't enough to melt her ice. Linne, Dirir, and especially Darnod were weak to ice, so it was tricky.

But I pulled through, and next up was Bruno, fighting-type master.

Linne was vital here. Her Fly was invaluable in avoiding moves while still dealing damage. But a Hitmonlee knocked her out, leaving Voivick, Darnod, Dirir, and Burhalla to take on the rest.

Next was Agatha, and her ghost-types were no joke...even if she was more of a poison specialist. All my normal-type moves were out of the question. But with patience and strategy, I did it.

And last of Kanto's Elite Four was Lance, who had influenced this journey in his own way, back at the Celadon Game Corner. Darnod helped me a lot here. It was dragon vs dragons, and Darnod's Dragon Claw took many of them down. But the same went in reverse, and Darnod fell, leaving Voivick to finish things off with their Aurora Beam.

One battle left. Healing up my team, I progressed into the champion's chamber, to face Blue one final time.

This was by far the most difficult late-game battle I had. All the others had specialized in one or two types. But Blue was like me, with a rounded team.
It was tough. It was arduous. It took every member of my team, even Jifa, to win.

But win I did, and I had become champion of Kanto.

I had completed Pokemon Firered.

While my thoughts on this one are more mixed than Emerald or X, I did truly enjoy it, especially once it hit its stride around Lavender Town.
It has its flaws. Extreme difficulty in the earlygame, lots of grinding necessary, and much confusion on where to go next.

But I had fun, despite it all. I cherish this victory all the same.

 

[IFBench]

Pokemon Black Retrospective, from the perspective of someone who became bored with it on their first playthrough​

To preface this, this is technically not my first time playing Pokemon Black? I did play it once before, back in mid 2020, before I started PMD Rescue Team DX. I quickly got very bored with it, though, and stopped playing before I made it to Striaton City.

Pokemon Black was a strange one for me.

Like I mentioned in the preface, I didn't like it much on my first playthrough. I grew bored of it before I even reached the first gym.

And yet, in the years from then until now, I kept hearing about how it was apparently the greatest that mainline Pokemon had ever been. How it was the pinnacle of the franchise.

I didn't think much of it, until I started my mainline Pokemon marathon, and realized that I would have to give Pokemon Black another go.

I completed Emerald, then X, then Firered, having differing opinions on each. And for the most part, I was having fun! So, maybe if I tried Black again, I'd have fun with it too?

I decided that it was finally time, and I started a new game of Pokemon Black.

Like with my first playthrough, I chose Oshawott as my starter, having gotten much more attached to the species since then, thanks to my PMD OC Gen.

I named my Oshawott Arbaquo, after a neglected Oshawott-Shaymin hybrid OC of mine.

And so, I began my journey through the Unova region, hoping to see it through to the end this time.

The journey up to Striaton wasn't much to write about, but Accumula Town was cute, especially with the musicians adding instruments to the background music. The first battle with N was also neat, but I'll get to him later.

But once I made it to Striaton, I had surpassed my 2020 self, making it farther than I ever had. And I was immediately curbstomped by Cheren three times in a row.

It wasn't until I was told that I could visit the Dreamyard before fighting the Striaton gym did I manage to level up Arbaquo a bit, acquired my second Pokemon, Minro the Pansear, and was able to defeat Cheren.

Then was the Striaton gym, but with Minro by my side, obtaining the Trio Badge from Cilan was mostly easy.

Then was the encounter with Team Plasma in the Dreamyard. I had heard talk of this moment several times, but it was still a shock to see it.

It makes sense, though. Despite the name of the game, this isn't a black and white story. As my friend Icy said, this moment shows the unscrupulous lengths people go to when they are truly dedicated to a cause.

After that, dream mist secured, I returned to Striaton City, and unlocked a feature that would probably have been really cool if it was still available. Unfortunately, it is no longer available, and so I can only imagine what it would have been like.

I then made my way along Route 3, where I had another encounter with Team Plasma, though not much else happened aside from me catching a Pidove as my third team member. I named him Poliner.

Nacrene City was interesting! I found it neat how the whole town was comprised of refurbished warehouse, and there was a second battle with N!

Before this playthrough, my only knowledge of N was fandom osmosis, RP blogs, and a few fanfics, particularly kintsugi's fics. At one point, I considered having him be the human world's Voice of Life, though I decided to give that role to a different character.

It was a completely different experience meeting him through the game as intended, though. I liked him a lot, with how much he said he liked math and said he wanted to be my friend!

After that battle, I tried to battle Lenora, and failed miserably. I tried again, and failed miserably again. It took several tries, but eventually I was able to defeat her.

I had no idea that Team Plasma would try to steal from the museum, nor that they thought that the Dragonite skull was part of the legendary dragon. It's kinda silly in retrospect, but this was something completely new to me. I was intrigued.

Plus, Burgh was here! I didn't think I'd encounter him until Castelia City, but here he was!

Pinwheel Forest was when I decided to activate the infinite rare candy cheat so that I wouldn't have to grind. It was a nice leisurely stroll, aside from the Plasma grunts, but I didn't want to get stuck having to grind later.

Soon, the stolen Dragonite skull was retrieved, and I could continue on to Castelia City.

Between Pinwheel Forest and Castelia City, though, was Skyarrow Bridge. It was really cool seeing the bridge in its full glory, the camera panning around and all sorts of cool perspective shots!

Castelia City continued with the cool perspective shots, with the city being like a mini-Lumiose, complete with side areas and back alleys. It was a lot to take in, but it was cool!

Not so cool was the fact that the EXP Share was still a held item that only worked on a single Pokemon. That battle house was neat, at least.

Burgh's gym was...something, to say the least, but he was an easier foe than Lenora, and I acquired my third badge.

After another encounter with Team Plasma, I made my way to the desert of Route 4, and was accosted by a sandstorm.

Like with Hoenn's desert, the weather chipped away at my Pokemon's health with every battle, making the route a test in how many battles I could avoid.

Eventually, though, I made it through, emerging into Nimbasa City.

It had just as many things to do as Castelia, despite being a bit smaller.

But before any of that (at least I think, this might have happened after the gym, I can't entirely remember), there was the fabled Ferris Wheel scene with N.

While it didn't quite live up to all the hype, it was still really cool! It was a fun way of explaining a bit more about N.

After that battle, I got to explore Nimbasa proper.

Honestly, I don't get the purpose of the Small Court and Big Stadium? As far as I could tell, they both just had one trainer battle each and that was it.

The Musical Theater was fun, though! I had fun dressing up Arbaquo for a musical, and the music was nice! It felt sorta like the contests from Emerald.

Then was the Nimbasa Gym, a rollercoaster of a time. Literally.

The trainers were actually harder than Elesa herself, but she was still a challenge, since half my team was weak to her. But Minro had recently learned a new fire-type move, and put it to great use here.

Seriously, why do people dislike the elemental monkeys?

Anyways, after the gym, I set out onto Route 5, where I encountered Alder, the champion.

Like in X, the champion here is more than just a final challenge, but a friend you meet along the way. I find that neat, and Alder's theme music is great.

After making it across Driftveil Drawbridge, I made it into Driftveil City, home of Charles the Heartbreaker.

The rotation battle with him was really fun! It was an interesting and intriguing new way of battle!

But before I could get too comfortable in the city, I had a job to do: Investigate the Cold Storage, and find one of the sages of Team Plasma.

It was a neat ice sliding puzzle area! And I caught a Minccino while I was at it! I named her Minrir.

After finding Zinzolin, it was time to take on the Driftveil City gym! It wasn't too challenging, but Clay was still a fun foe!

Next was the quaint Route 6, where I caught another team member, Daria the Deerling.

Chargestone Cave was really cool! I really enjoyed the puzzles with the floating magnetic rocks, and I caught a Drilbur here, who I named Rilia!

The Team Plasma encounter here was cool, too! It was neat being surrounded by the Shadow Triad to be taken to N, and seeing N clash with Professor Juniper.

But soon, I emerged into Mistralton City, and not a moment too soon, for I had a breakthrough:

I had figured out how to use my Action Replay to activate mystery gifts, and let me do the Victini event.

Upon activating the code, I received the Liberty Pass from the mystery gift deliverer, and promptly flew back to Castelia City, to see what this event was all about.

It wasn't much, probably because I was way over the level for it, but it was still fun battling the Plasma grunts, learning about Victini, and then battling and catching Victini!

After that little side tangent, I flew back to Mistralton. But before I could challenge the gym, I had to trek up Celestial Tower.

Celestial Tower felt a lot like the Pokemon Tower in Lavender Town back in Kanto. It was eerie, spooky, and had possessed trainers too! It was a very fun experience, and I enjoyed the climb.

After meeting with Skyla at the peak of the tower, it was time to go back to Mistralton and challenge her gym.

I thought the stuff I had heard about the cannons in her gym were exaggerated.

They were not exaggerated.

Not only were you shot out of cannons in order to traverse the gym, one of the final cannons shot you face-first into a steel wall. Youch.

But aside from that, Skyla was pretty easy, and I got my sixth badge.

After traveling across the other part of Route 7, and through the Twist Mountain mines, I arrived at the moist Icirrus City.

Gotta say, I was not expecting to be able to encounter wild Pokemon within a city, but I found it neat!

Also neat, if tremendously silly, was the quiz house. I laughed a lot at the question I got, being "What do you call your father's brother", and the hint being "it's not big brother".

But then it was time to face the Icirrus gym.

It was like a souped-up version of Cold Storage, with rotating mechanisms that change your sliding trajectory. It was a really fun puzzle!

But thanks to Minro, Brycen wasn't very tough. And I got my seventh badge.

As we exited the gym, though, who to greet us but Team Plasma? Seeing the Shadow Triad surround us was certainly a surprise, especially with them telling us to go to Dragonspiral Tower.

And so, to Dragonspiral Tower I went.

Dragonspiral Tower reminded me of Sky Pillar from Emerald, with it being more and more crumbled and unstable as you went up. It had a lot of fun navigational challenges as I made my way up to the top!

But I was too late. N had already awakened Zekrom, and now my only hope lay with awakening the legendary dragon of truth, Reshiram.

I really appreciate how, unlike Emerald and Firered, Black tells you where to go. You're not left wandering for hours trying to find the Team Magma base, only for it to be hidden behind a random rock on the other side of the region. Nor are you left to flounder after finding all your available routes blocked by Snorlaxes, only to find out that you had to backtrack to a prior city with no indication.

No, instead, Black directly tells you to head to the Desert Resort.

Speaking of which, the Desert Resort was neat! It was unique among most other decrepit structures I've seen in other mainline Pokemon games, in that you're not going up, but down. Down, down, as far as you can go, to the deepest part of this buried castle. It was really cool!

Alas, this is not where Reshiram was. They were actually right before my eyes all the way back in Nacrene City. Reshiram was the unassuming little stone in the top left part of the museum.

And so, I acquired the stone form of Reshiram, but they were still sealed, with me having no idea how to free them.

I flew back to Icirrus City, and continued onwards, making my way towards Opelucid City. But before I could get there, I had to travel across Tubeline Bridge first.

Let me tell you. It was an experience seeing a figure at the far end of the bridge, thinking, "hey, they look familiar", and as soon as I realize it's Ghetsis, I get surrounded by the Shadow Triad.

And then he tells you his whole secret evil plan. Which, I feel was kinda weird, but alright.

Route 9 was short enough that the shock was still there when I arrived at Opelucid City.

Opelucid City was reallty cool! I loved the look of it all, and the music was great! It even had the first rotation battles I've seen since Heartbreaker Charles!

And after a conversation with Iris and Drayden, it was time to take on my final gym of this game.

The Opelucid Gym was massive, with a really interesting puzzle. It felt almost overwhelming with how big it was, but soon, I made it to the end, to battle Drayden.

It was a fun fight, and his Druddigon gave me quite a bit of trouble. But I won, and got my final badge.

All that was left was to head through Route 10, and take on the Pokemon League...or so the game probably wanted me to think.

Route 10 had some really nice music, and the final rival battles against Cheren and Bianca. I haven't talked about them nearly enough here, so I'll do that now.

Cheren was my first roadblock, the one who curbstomped me three times in a row all the way back in Striaton. It was really neat seeing his character development, seeing him figure out what he wants to do with his life.

Bianca is a similar story. She never curbstomped me, but she had her own character development, that maybe she had a different calling in life than what she once thought. And from what I've heard of B2W2, I think she achieved that calling.

All in all, they're great rivals, and those final battles with them reminded me of the final battles with the Kalos friends, on the last route before its Victory Road.

Fitting, as I was just about to reach Unova's Victory Road.

The badge check gates here were amazing. They were like Kanto's, but with the flavor of Kalos, and dialed up to 11.

Each badge had its own themed area, with the Trio badge having an outdoor dining area, the Legend badge having two dragon statues, and so on. And with each gate i passed through, more instruments were added to the music, until it all came together, forming the music for Unova's Victory Road.

Hoenn's Victory Road was a test of navigation. Kalos' was a test of strength. Kanto's was a test of wit. What, then, would Unova's Victory Road test?
A combination of all three.

I had to use spatial reasoning to figure out what caves went where, and which slopes to slide down. I had to use my sense of direction to make it through the caves, and know when I'm going the wrong way. And I had to use my strength to defeat some of the toughest trainers yet.

It was fantastic, probably my favorite Victory Road yet.

And finally, I had made it to the Pokemon League.

Apparently I was wrong in my X retrospective. Kalos wasn't the first region to let you challenge the Elite Four in any order you wish. Unova lets you do that too.

I unfortunately don't remember much of my matches agaisnt Unova's Elite Four, but they were each very tricky. I had to use a lot of strategy to get past them each. And I remember that the order I fought them in was Shauntal, Grimsley, Marshal, and Caitlin. And some of them had mentioned another challenger, one that came before me.

I defeated them all, though, and was ready to face Champion Alder.

But I never got the chance to, as N had already beaten him first.

It was like a twisted version of the final hour of Firered. Your rival had become champion moments before you.

Only with N, he wasn't planning on a simple battle for the title of champion.

No, as the castle of Team Plasma rose up from the ground, I knew that this would be a battle to decide the fate of the Unova region.

But I had to reach N first, and travel through the castle to get to him.

Black is, as far as I'm aware, the first mainline Pokemon game to do the unthinkable: have the plot take precedence over the journey to become champion. Rather than the game's plot ending at the 7th or 8th gym, like with Emerald, X, and Firered, the ending of the plot is the ending of the game.
It's a lot like Violet in that regard, but I'll talk about that once I write my retrospective on Violet.

Team Plasma's Castle was an experience I won't soon forget. There were no battles until the very end. I was told the story of N and Team Plasma by the Shadow Triad, N's room, and N's siblings.

Anthea and Concordia should have gotten more screentime, yes. But I still like their role here, in how they show you more of what Team Plasma was like, and what drove N to be like this.

But before long, I made it to the throne room, where N waited.

N told me I wasn't ready, that I wasn't worthy, as Reshiram hadn't awakened yet. But before my eyes, the Light Stone began to glow, and Reshiram emerged from it.

I decided to use Minro to try to catch Reshiram, since Reshiram would likely be taking their spot on the team for the coming battles. I wanted to let my faithful monkey companion have one more moment in the spotlight.

And they performed wonderfully. Whittling down Reshiram to a tiny sliver of health, enough that I could catch it.

N was my toughest opponent yet, with his team being even higher leveled than the Elite Four.

But I remembered his words from back in Nacrene City, about how, when all of this was over, he wanted to be friends with me.

I think those words are what made this part of the game so emotional to me. I wanted that to come true.

And so, I battled, and I won.

And yet, it wasn't over. Ghetsis came along, and brutally berated N. And then, he challenged me, in a battle that would decide the fate of the Unova region.

He was even tougher than N was. Fitting, as he was my final challenge in the main story of this game. It took everything I had, every single member of my team, to defeat him. By the time I was at his last Pokemon, only Arbaquo was left standing.

But despite the odds, I won. I had defeated Ghetsis.

But before the credits rolled, there was one final cutscene. A conversation from N to me. About how he didn't understand me at first, about how he couldn't understand why a Pokemon had liked me. About how he wanted to battle me, to find out why.

And then, that iconic line came. About making my dreams come true.

I like to think that my character and N became friends.

And so, the credits rolled, ending this game.

I had completed Pokemon Black.

I had so much fun with this game, and I'm so glad I gave it another go. Out of the four I've completed for this marathon so far, it's probably my favorite mainline Pokemon game.

It's not perfect. It had its difficulty spikes, and a few parts of it felt a bit awkward.

But it was fantastic. I love this game, it was fantastic.

I see what the hype is all about now.

 

[IFBench]

Miscellaneous things a PMD fan has found strange about mainline Pokemon games​

To preface this, this is not a true retrospective. This is just me rambling about some things I found odd in the mainline Pokemon games I've played so far, including those I have not yet finished.

This is likely going to be much shorter and more unorganized than my mainline Pokemon retrospectives, so be warned.

Why is move relearning so restrictive in so many of the mainline Pokemon games? In Emerald, X, Firered, and Black, it requires an entire Heart Scale in order to let your Pokemon relearn a single move. And unless I've been very unlucky, Heart Scales are very hard to find.

Not to mention how in Firered, the Move Reminder is on Two Island, so you can't reach them until you make it to Cinnabar Island, which is very far into the game.

Shield allows your Pokemon to remember moves for free any time you go to any Pokemon Center, and Legends Arceus and Violet makes it even more accessible, with moves being adjustable anytime, anywhere.

Is it just early installment weirdness stuff? But why did it last so long? It was in X, so it lasted at least until then. I can't imagine it lasted much longer than that. Hopefully Alpha Sapphire, Sun, Ultra Moon, and Let's Go Eevee have more accessible Move Reminders.

On the topic of moves, learning them to begin with is weird too. So many move tutors are functionally just early-gen TMs, with them saying that they'll only teach the move once. It makes me nervous and less likely to ask them to teach my Pokemon moves, because move relearning is so difficult, and I don't want to waste this one chance to learn these moves.

I also recently encountered a Roaming Pokemon for the first time, in Soulsilver. I had just left Ecruteak, and my immediate first encounter was Entei. I had no idea what to do, and it was much higher leveled than any of my Pokemon, so I just used my Furret's Run Away ability to flee before it could decimate my team. But apparently Entei always flees if not trapped? So I wasted a rare encounter.

Speaking of Entei (and Raikou), I don't understand their pathing at all. They seem to travel completely randomly on the map, seemingly teleporting several routes over every time I enter an area. How am I supposed to corner them and encounter them? Or is there some other trick to it than clever maneuvering?

There's so many baffling things about mainline Pokemon, from the perspective of a primarily PMD player. I'm still enjoying these games a ton, but there's a lot that's confusing about them to me.

 

[IFBench]

Pokemon Soulsilver Retrospective, from the perspective of someone who had it as their first Pokemon game but never finished it (until now)​

To preface this, this is not my first time playing Pokemon Soulsilver. I played some of it back in 2012 or so, but didn't get very far. And my memories of that playthrough are almost nonexistant, so this is essentially still a first playthrough.

Pokemon Soulsilver has a strange sort of anti-nostalgia to it to me.

It was technically my very first Pokemon game, yet I have more memories of the 25 minutes I played of Explorers of Time back in 2012, than I do of the several hours I played of Soulsilver in that year.

I don't even remember how far I truly got. It might have only been up to the first gym, it might have been up to Pryce, I don't know.

What I do know, though, is that like with Black, people keep bringing up Soulsilver and Heartgold to be the "golden age" of Pokemon. That it was when the series was good. (Though I personally disagree. I love Violet, and I also love what I've played of Shield so far.)

Nonetheless, the idea of trying Soulsilver again kept popping up in my head after I got into PMD. I briefly entertained the idea of playing it again in 2021, then again in 2022, but I never went through with it until I started this marathon.

But in September of 2023, I decided to do it. I deleted my old save file, and started anew. While I had chosen a Cyndaquil during my first playthrough, this time, I chose a Chikorita as my starter. I named him Acacia, after my PMD Rescue Team DX partner.

However, soon after entering Cherrygrove City, I very quickly got sidetracked with Emerald and put Soulsilver on hold. I didn't get back to it until July of 2024, after I had finished Emerald, X, Firered, and Black.

And after I figured out how to implement the infinite rare candy cheat, since I remember a lot of people talking about how grindy the Johto games are.

But after all that, my second playthrough of Soulsilver had truly begun.

I went to go meet Professor Oak, and as I was on my way to return to New Bark Town, I had my first encounter with this game's rival, Silver.

I very nearly lost that first battle, but through sheer luck, Acacia managed to win.

After meeting with Professor Elm again and hearing about the theft, I caught a Sentret, and named him Niko, after a Sentret character from my friend Melmy.

I continued on the way to Violet City, collecting a few apricorns along the way. It was cool seeing them again after Legends Arceus, even if they did originate here. I also briefly peeked into Dark Cave.

Violet City was neat to see! I enjoyed how the Pokemon Center and Pokemart had different colors than normal.

I decided to head to the Sprout Tower first, with Niko at the front of my party.

Side note, I love how your Pokemon follow you around in this game, and you can interact with them! Reminds me of the "Let's go together" feature from Violet.

The Sprout Tower was...not very fun. It was a bunch of extremely samey trainer battles, all the way up to the top floor. Though seeing the central pillar shake and wobble was pretty neat.

I also caught a Ratatta here, who would be my HM buddy. I named her Jifa, after my HM buddy from my Firered playthrough.

But with Niko leveled up quite a bit, I decided to take on Falkner. He was pretty tough, but Acacia felled his Pidgey, and Niko felled his Pidgeotto (after 5 Roosts).

Then I decided to take a short detour to explore the Ruins of Alph. It was cool to look around for what possible secrets the ruins held, and the sliding puzzle was fun, though I didn't spend much time there.

As I was traveling down Route 32, I caught a Mareep that I named Marla, and subsequently found someone trying to sell me a Slowpoke tail for an obscene amount of money. I knew from fandom osmosis that there was something related to Slowpoke tails coming up soon.

But before that, I had to traverse Union Cave. It was a bit tricky due to all the firebreather trainers around, but I made it out the other side, into Azalea Town, where Team Rocket awaited me.

After talking to Kurt, I went into the Slowpoke well, and had my first encounter with one of the Team Rocket executives, Proton. Thanks to Marla, he wasn't very difficult to defeat.

Apparently, in the original Johto games, GSC, the Rocket executives are all nameless? I guess that makes sense with how different they were in the GSC arc of the Adventures manga, but I'm glad they were given names and personalities in the remakes.

But after defeating Proton, it was time to face my second Johto gym leader, Bugsy. He was quite tricky, especially with how powerful that Scyther of his was. But he had a Metapod with only Tackle, allowing me to have Niko spam Defense Curls to maximize his defense. After that, taking care of the Scyther was easy, and I won.

My next task was to look for Farfetch'd in the Ilex Forest. I enjoyed the little puzzle here on how to sneak up on them, it was pretty neat!

Then, with Cut taught to Jifa, I pressed onwards, and helped out one of the Kimono Girls along the way.

Soon, I made it to Goldenrod City, the hometown of my character Gen.

It was one thing to research Goldenrod City, but another thing entirely to experience it myself. It was massive and sprawling, and took me quite a while to explore it fully.

I feel like now's a good time to talk about nostalgia.

See, I remember nothing of Goldenrod City from my 2012 playthrough. I'm not sure I even ever got there. Yet you might be wondering, why choose it to be Gen's hometown? Why not Saffron City, or Castelia City, or another city from the mainline Pokemon games?

It has less to do with Goldenrod City itself, and more with Johto as a region. My memories of Soulsilver from 2012, foggy and faint as they may be, did influence me to have Gen be from a Johto town. From there, I just chose what looked like the biggest city, and made that his hometown.

Johto does hold some nostalgia for me, and so I cannot truly say that this retrospective is untainted by nostalgia. I do, however, believe that nostalgia to be faint enough to be negligible. I hope that is satisfactory.

Back to Goldenrod City, I completed the quiz to get a radio card, and went to the gym to challenge Whitney.

The rumors weren't lying, that Miltank was tough. I had to have Acacia use stall strats in order to pull off a win.

Next up, I headed towards Ecruteak City, and was starting to understand the jokes about Youngster Joey, after receiving my 11th call about his "top percentage Ratatta".

Speaking of the Pokegear, it's really neat! It has so many little functions, such as the radio and calling people you've met along your journey. Though I do wish the map was a key item instead of being inside the Pokegear. I always assigned the town map to the quickselect button.

But soon, I made it to Ecruteak City, after catching a Pidgey and naming him Bagoli. After fending off a Rocket grunt inside the Dance Theater, I went inside the Burned Tower, to find Morty, Eusine, and Silver.

Eusine is definitely an odd character. All I knew of him before this playthrough was from Pokespe, and that he was a prominent character in Crystal. I think he's neat, though.

After a battle with Silver, I went downstairs, causing Entei, Raikou, and Suicune to flee. Though I'm not sure why they only fled then, and not during the commotion upstairs.

For the gym battle against Morty, I actually only used my Furret, Niko. I had kept Foresight on him, and this allowed him to sweep through the ghosts with Headbutt, while being immune to all the ghost moves.

Afterwards, I headed east, and got the Strength HM. But not wanting to go through a cave at the moment, I headed west towards Olivine...and immediately encountered Entei.

I had no idea what to do here. Entei was far beyond the levels of any of my Pokemon, and I had no idea what triggered the encounter.

So, since Niko was still in the front of my party, I used his Run Away ability to flee the battle.

It wasn't until I told my friends about this that I learned about Roaming Pokemon.

Apparently, Entei and Raikou randomly teleport around the map, and if you end up on a route with one of them, you have a chance of encountering them. You only have a single turn to do anything against them, but damage stays between battles with them.

I don't understand the reason for all this in the slightest.

I was rather baffled by this, but I continued onwards, to Olivine City. I caught a Pidgey somewhere around

I like the Olivine lighthouse's music. It reminds me a bit of Pokemon Tower from Firered. Somber, but catchy.

Eventually, I made it to the top of the lighthouse, and was told to go to Cianwood to get medicine for Amphy.

Side note, I love how the lighthouse Ampharos has a nickname.

Surfing to Cianwood was simple, and so was getting the medicine. And there was also Suicune, in plain sight. I was expecting Suicune to be a Roaming Pokemon like Entei and Raikou, but here they were.

Of course, they fled shortly afterwards, but it was nice seeing Eusine again afterwards, and getting to battle him!

The gym battle with Chuck was actually easier than his gym trainers. After winning, and with the medicine and Fly HM in hand, I flew back to the Olivine lighthouse, to give the medicine to Amphy.

Jasmine was a rather difficult battle, as I had nothing super-effective against Steel. It took several tries, and me mixing up my strategy a bit, but I managed to win.

I flew back to Ecruteak City, surfed around Mount Mortar, encountered Suicune and Eusine again, and arrived in Mahogany Town.

The gym was blocked off, I couldn't go further west, and the strange souvenir shop didn't hold much interest for now. So my only path forward was north, towards the Lake of Rage.

And I got mugged by Team Rocket along the way.

But I managed to catch the red Gyarados, my first shiny I've encountered during my entire mainline Pokemon marathon. I named them Splind.

After arriving back on shore, I encountered Lance for the first time since my Firered playthrough. It was cool seeing him outside the Pokemon League.

And after making my way back to Mahogany Town, I got to see the oft-memed scene of Lance having his Dragonite Hyper Beam someone. Then, it was time for the Johto Rocket Hideout.

I'll be honest, it kinda felt like a disjointed mess.

They had something cool starting out, with the Persian security statues. But after the first one, you can immediately turn them off, and they don't appear on any other floors. I'd have liked to see some stuff about remaining out of their lines of sight. There was also the explosive floor, which I still have no idea what was up with.

Then there was the two passwords, for which I had to battle Rocket grunts willy-nilly until I found both of the ones with passwords. I feel like a hint as to which grunts had the passwords would make this better.

The battle with Petrel wasn't much to speak of, though it was funny seeing him speaking the password aloud backfiring on him, thanks to his Murkrow.

Then there was a battle with another Rocket executive, Ariana. I feel like she and Petrel deserved their own separate encounters, instead of being immediately one after another.

And even after defeating her, it still wasn't over. I still had to defeat the Electrodes powering the radio transmission.

The entire hideout was all over the place, and I felt like it's a bit indicative of one of my main problems with this game.

But before that, it was time to take on Pryce.

He wasn't too tricky, but he was no pushover either. It was also interesting to see how he differed from his Pokespe incarnation.

But I won, and immediately afterwards, Team Rocket sends their second radio transmission.

I feel like now is the best time for me to talk about the pacing with Team Rocket in this game.

In short, I really feel like it'd have benefited from another major encounter with them before Mahogany Town. Maybe around Olivine or Cianwood.

Because before Mahognay Town, there was only two noteworthy encounters with them. The Slowpoke Well, and the single grunt in the Ecruteak Dance Theater. That's it.

Petrel and Ariana should have had their own bases, instead of being shoved into one together. I also feel like it'd help make Team Rocket feel like more of a threat, rather than something that happens almost entirely just before and just after the gym battle with Pryce.

Sorry for the negativity there, but I needed to get that off my chest.

Anyways, I flew back to Goldenrod City, to take on Team Rocket one final time...at least until Ultra Moon and Let's Go Eevee.

It was neat seeing the Rocket disguise from the first visit to Goldenrod coming into play here...at least until Silver unmasked me immediately after I entered the Radio Tower.

Still, it was fun fighting all the Rocket executives again. Petrel, Proton, and Ariana. It was a Rocket marathon, and I was having far more fun here than in the Rocket Hideout. Helped that the door puzzle in the underground storage area was pretty fun!

But soon enough, I was at the observation deck of the Radio Tower, ready to face off against Archer.

Like with Petrel and Ariana, I wish we had gotten to see more of Archer. But his battle didn't disappoint. It was quite tricky! But I won, and defeated this iteration of Team Rocket for good.

Again, though, mainline Pokemon games don't end when the plot ends. I still had quite a ways to go before the credits.

Next up was the Ice Path. It felt like sorta an extension of the Mahogany Town gym, with more ice puzzles. This time with an added echo of the Seafoam Islands puzzle, of using Strength to push boulders down holes. It was a fun challenge!

Soon, though, I made it through, to Blackthorn City, ready to face the final Johto gym leader, Clair. She was a tough opponent, but I won the battle.

Not the badge, though, not yet. For the second time this game, a gym leader refused to hand me the badge after I won the battle. But unlike Whitney, Clair wasn't content to just give me it anyways after a few seconds.

No, I had to go into the Dragon's Den, and pass one more test in order to prove myself worthy of the Rising Badge.

I really like this part of Soulsilver! It's so interesting to see some of the gym badges have a bit more to them than usual.

I passed the test, and received my final Johto badge, only to receive a call from Professor Elm, telling me to meet him at his lab.

I decided to go the long way, instead of simply flying there. So I set foot onto Route 45, and immediately encountered the last of the Legendary Beasts, Raikou.

Sure enough, after a single Petal Dance from Acacia, it fled. But I had now seen Entei, Raikou, and Suicune all at least once, and so I was satisfied.

After receiving the master ball from Professor Elm, it was now time for me to face the toughest trainers yet, the Kimono Girls.

Silver wasn't kidding, they were very tricky opponents. They may only have had one Pokemon each, but as I couldn't heal between, it was essentially like fighting one trainer with five Eeveelutions.

But I pulled through, and won, receiving the Tidal Bell. And then, it was time for me to go to the Whirl Islands.

Which were completely dark.

Oh no.

I was not looking forward to stumbling blindly in the dark again like I did with Rock Tunnel in Firered, and Emerald's Victory Road. And due to my single rule for this marathon, I could not look at a guide for help.

Not helping was that the only members of my team who could learn Flash already had four moves that I wanted to keep on them.

Luckily, I was still able to ask friends for advice, and one of them gave me a very useful tip. To go in the top-right island entrance, and not take any stairs.

And so, I navigated through the Whirl Islands with that advice in mind, eventually coming to Lugia's hiding place beneath the waves.

The scenee to summon Lugia was really cool! I love how the bells stated getting added to the track as each one began to ring.

And then, it was time to face off against the box legendary, Lugia.

I wanted to catch Lugia. Not only that, I wanted to catch Lugia in anything but the master ball. I wanted to prove that I was worthy of being Lugia's trainer.

They weren't kidding, the catch rate for Johto's legendaries is very small. Even after having Marla paralyze Lugia and then knock it down to a tiny sliver of health, I went through all my ultra balls and great balls without a catch.

I tried again, having Marla knock Lugia down to an even tinier sliver of health, plus paralysis. Still, it took nearly my entire ultra ball stock again to catch Lugia.

But I did catch Lugia. It was time to say goodbye for Jifa, at least for now, as I had Lugia take the sixth spot on my team. I needed every advantage I could get for what was to come.

My first steps as part of that, would be my first steps in this game into Kanto.

You see, I had thought that the entirety of Kanto was post-game only. That you wouldn't even step foot there until after the credits roll. So imagine my surprise when the first person I meet after surfing east from New Bark Town tells me that I'm in Kanto now!

It was so cool seeing the map be updated to show this section of Kanto, and it made me determined to keep going.

The trainer battles on Route 27 and Route 26 were some of the toughest yet, but I kept going, unstoppable on my way to the Pokemon League.

But before I got there, I had one final challenge, Victory Road.

It wasn't nearly as tricky as the other Victory Roads I had faced so far. The puzzles were pretty simple, and here weren't any trainers there.

Well, except for one, who had driven off all the other trainers on Victory Road.

The final fight here with Silver reminded me of the battle with Wally from Emerald. A final battle with one of your rivals, inside Victory Road. Only this time, it was at the end of Victory Road, rather than the start.

It was fun to see Silver realizing what he had to do to become a truly strong trainer: be better friends with his Pokemon.

Silver is probably my favorite of the "jerk rivals" (though what I've heard of Bede makes him a very close contender). He's a very interesting character, and this final battle with him was great!

After saying goodbye to Silver for the final time, it was time to enter the Pokemon League.

Healing up my team, and purchasing some final supplies, I headed beyond the doorway at the top, to start my Elite Four challenge.

Will was quite tough! But Psychic's weakness to Bug would be my key here, with Marla's Signal Beam decimating many of his Pokemon. While I won this battle handily, it would only get more difficult from here.

Koga was no joke. I had no counter to Poison, and his hyper-evasive Pokemon badly poisoned several members of my team. But Niko's Foresight would once again prove useful, and be key in taking down Koga's Pokemon.

Next was another familiar face, Bruno. Bagoli and Lugia were key here, but a tricky switch-out from Bruno during a Fly from Bagoli had him get taken out by a Rock Slide from Bruno's Onix. Thankfully, Acacia was able to take care of the Onix, and Lugia took care of the rest.

Finally, there was Karen. True to her advice, I was going to try to win with my favorites. I tried to have Niko pull the Foresight trick against her Gengar, but it surprised me with a Focus Blast, taking Niko out. But with the help of Marla, Acacia, and Splind, Karen's team was defeated.

All that remained now was Champion Lance.

I healed up my team, but forgot to use an Ether on Marla, whose Discharge was running low on PP. This would soon come back to bite me.

Lance was my toughest opponent in this game by far. Sure, Marla easily took out his Gyarados with a Discharge, and Splind took out his most powerful Dragonite with an Ice Fang, but then the tides turned in Lance's favor. Splind got knocked out by a Thunder, and Marla ran out of PP for Discharge. I had to scramble to figure out a strategy, and it took all of my remaining Hyper Potions.

But eventually, I won. I became champion of Johto, and finally finished Soulsilver. I had done what my 2012 self couldn't, and beaten this game for the very first time.

I had completed Pokemon Soulsilver, and that fact means so much to me.

I will be doing the postgame for Soulsilver eventually. But that'll probably be its own retrospective.

I had a lot of fun with Soulsilver! Sure, its pacing could have been a lot better, but it was a really nice experience overall! Though I feel like it'd have been a lot trickier and more frustrating without the infinite rare candy cheat.

I am so happy to have finally completed this game, 12 years later.

 

[IFBench]

Pokemon Shield Retrospective, from the perspective of someone whose first Pokemon fandom experience was being surrounded by hate for SwSh​

To preface this, when I made a discord account, it was around the time of Sword and Shield's release. While I wasn't in any Pokemon-centric communities at the time, as I was currently in the Undertale fandom, there was still lots of discussion about how bad the Galar games apparently were. But as part of this marathon, I decided to give Shield a try anyways.

Pokemon Shield is one of my favorite games I've played as part of this marathon.

I was really not expecting to like it as much as I did.

I've been playing it on and off since March of last year, so my memory of some of the earlier parts of it may admittedly be a bit spotty.

But I loved this game. It definitely has its flaws, sure, but overall, I loved it!

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start from the beginning, the very beginning.

I wasn't expecting Rose of all people to do the "Welcome to the world of Pokemon" speech! It was a fun change of pace, seeing the villain do the speech, even if I wasn't supposed to know he's the villain yet.

I also really enjoyed the little scene with the starters playing together. It was adorable, and endeared me to these little fellows more than I already was.

I chose Sobble, of course, and named him Davulo.

And after my first battle with Hop, it was time to investigate the Slumbering Weald!

Like I mentioned in my X retrospective, the Weald feels very lonely, even with Hop by your side. I feel like it works to the benefit of the atmosphere, though. This area doubles as both the first and last Route of the game, and that lonely, creepy feeling at the beginning makes the revisit all the more compelling.

I also really enjoyed the battle with Zamazenta here. My level 5 Sobble, all alone against this foggy Pokemon that my attacks did nothing to. Combined with the eerie music, it was a fantastic moment.

After that, it was time for Route 1!

I caught a few Pokemon on this route who'd become part of my main team. Melva the Rookidee, and Swilno the Nickit.

And after a brief look around in Wedgehurst, it was time for me to go to the Lab on Route 2, where I met Sonia.

Sonia is probably one of my favorite professor characters in the series, thanks to her being much more involved in the plot than the likes of Oak, Elm, Birch, and so on. She’s also just a really fun character overall, from her personality to her design to her backstory. She’s great!

It was also here where I was introduced to the signature gimmick of Pokemon Shield: Dynamax!

To me, Dynamax is a fantastic fusion of Mega Evolution and Z-Moves. Barring two (or three) very special exceptions, every Pokemon in the game has access to it, unlike Mega Evolution’s very limited pool. And while Dynamaxed, every move is essentially a Z-Move.

…I’ll get to Gigantamax and my grievances with it later, but Dynamax itself is fantastic!

After obtaining the Dynamax Band, I made my way back to Wedgehurst, where the first DLC event happened: A Galarian Slowpoke had made its way onto the rails, and I had to do something about it.

And so that’s how Lazoss the G!Slowpoke joined my team, though he wouldn’t be a permanent member.

And then, at last, with the rails cleared, I could go to the central point of Galar: The Wild Area.

The Wild Area reminded me of Legends Arceus and Violet. Which makes sense, as it was the precursor to the open world-ness of those games. Ironically, despite it being much, much more limited in scope than Violet's complete open world, I kinda liked it more? The smaller area made each and every bit of it feel special.

Also I don't really get the hype of "open world" stuff. Like, does every game need to be completely open world? Is it not enough to have small sections like the Wild Area mixed with more linear Routes?

Pardon my Mario and Zelda fan, but Shield feels a bit like the Bowser's Fury mode in 3D World, with having both open and linear parts, while Violet feels more like Breath of the Wild, being completely open with little sense of direction. I personally like the former more than the latter.

But this isn't a Mario or Zelda retrospective, and I haven't gotten to my Pokemon Violet retrospective yet. So I'm going to cut this tangent short, and talk about how it felt to arrive in Motosoke, the first "big city" of the game.

(Also, on editing this, I realized that I forgot to mention that I caught a Minccino here, who would become my fourth permanent team member. I named her Mintar.)

Motosoke is awesome.

From the rows of unique stores on main street, to the giant cogs that lift you to the upper level of the city, to all the side stuff around, I was in awe my first time being here.

But before I could truly start exploring, I had a stop to make: The Budew Drop Inn, to get a good night's rest.

And in there, I encounter the second of the game's rivals: Marnie, as well as the game's "evil team": Team Yell.

I'll save my overall thoughts on both of them for later, but I quite like each! I just wish they were fleshed out more, and there were more encounters with them.

After a battle with some Team Yell grunts, it was finally time to officially register for the Gym Challenge.

That cinematic cutscene was so cool! Introducing me to (almost) all the gym leaders in such a fun way. I quite liked it! And at last, I could begin my Gym Challenge.

After I explored Motosoke some more, in which I discovered even more cool stuff, like the Hi-Tech Earbuds, which are basically a set of volume sliders. I love how they gave personality to this basic game feature, though I do wish it wasn't so missable, and was earlier on.

But to be fair, other Pokemon games also take a while to give you basic features, like how long Firered takes to give you the Running Shoes. So I can't fault Shield too much on that front, this is still before the first gym after all.

And speaking of that first gym, it was time for me to make my way towards it.

Route 3 wasn't really much to write about, but Galar Mine 1 was pretty cool! I only wish it had a better name. The music was funky, the aesthetics were neat, and I had my first battle with Bede, the third rival of the game.

Like with Hop and Marnie, I'll talk about Bede more later, but my friend @crispythecascoon made him my favorite of the Galar rivals, and this was a very fun first encounter with him!

Route 4 was very cool! I loved seeing Turffield in the distance as I traveled through these rolling fields, it was a great atmosphere for closing in on my first gym town!

Turffield was a much smaller town than Motosoke or even Wedgehurst, but what it lacks in size it makes up for with intrigue: A mystery involving a riddle and stone walls, promising a treasure to anyone who can figure it out.

I couldn't figure it out, but I had fun trying!

But, at last, it was time for my first gym, the grass-type gym.

The Wooloo herding was a fun minigame, and I quite liked it! It reminded me a bit of the Olive Roll from Pokemon Violet.

But with that complete, I was up against Milo.

He wasn't nearly as much of a challenge as Brock was in Firered, but he wasn't a complete pushover like Roxanne in Emerald either. He was a pretty great first gym leader, just the right amount of difficulty for your first real test. And with Milo defeated, I had obtained my first badge of Galar, a fragment of a larger medallion.

Route 5 was also much not to write about, though I really enjoyed the variety of layouts Routes could have now that they weren't limited to a grid. Though there was another battle with Hop here, which was fun.

Hulbury started off with running into Rose, and a small detour to find Nessa at the lighthouse, where she gives me her League Card.

I think now's the best time for me to talk about League Cards, a SwSh-exclusive mechanic.

I like it a lot! It gives a bunch of extra background info on a lot of important trainers, such as gym leaders, and you can even make your own and customize it!

I may have stopped to update my League Card after every single gym battle I did.

Anyways, back to Hulbury, the gym test for it was a pretty traditional one: Find your way through a gimmicky maze. Nothing special, but nothing bad either.

Nessa wasn't quite as much of a challenge as Milo, but she still put up a fight. I won in the end, though, netting me my second badge.

After that was an awkward meal with Rose, where he rambled on about a lot of stuff about energy. I enjoyed this little interaction to get the plot started, but I don't really understand why Rose wanted to have a meeting with the protag specifically? Is it because they know Leon personally?

Next was Galar Mine 2, which wasn't quite as pretty as the first one. It was more dim and drab, though there were encounters with both Bede and Team Yell here, which were both nice, and I got to learn more about Bede's motivations!

After that was a return to Motosoke, where I battled Marnie, and then went back into the Motosoke gym to finally do battle there.

It was really cool revisiting an earlier town to do a gym there you couldn't before! It reminds me a bit of Viridian City from Firered, with how it's the second town, but the final gym town.

The gym test was pretty unique, too! It involved a race to catch three Pokemon, in double battles with trainers who'd do their best to get in your way. I quite liked it!

Kabu himself was pretty easy, likely because I had chosen Sobble as my starter, but it was still a fun battle.

The next thing in the main story was to return to the Wild Area, but I wanted to check out the DLC areas first, the Isle of Armor and the Crown Tundra.

First up was the Isle of Armor, which had a really cool loading screen of the train and the flying taxi there. And upon arrival, I met the DLC rival for Pokemon Shield, Avery.

Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield, for some reason, have version-exclusive rivals for the DLC. I don't exactly know why they did this, but I like both, though as Shield was the game I played, I'll mostly just talk about Avery.

Avery is a neat rival! He’s a minor circuit gym leader, a psychic who’s not that great at psychic stuff, and was training at the Master Dojo to try to hone his skills in order to become part of the major circuit. Very fun backstory and character concept, but I really wish I got to see more of it through cutscenes and stuff, instead of just his League Card.

After the battle with Avery outside the train station, I decided to take a visit to the Crown Tundra, to see what that had in store.

And as I came face to face with Peony’s level 70 Copperjah, I realized that was a mistake.

I immediately turned around, and went back to the Isle of Armor to do some exploring, when I stumbled upon the ingredients seller.

I had no idea about the cooking system for this game before, but I quickly decided that I wanted to find every single curry recipe in the game, and bought out the entire current stock of ingredients.

Afterwards, I went inside the dojo, to do Mustard’s tasks three. First up was the runaway Slowpoke, which was simple enough. The mushroom soup was also pretty easy, even with Avery’s interference, and taught me an important gameplay mechanic: making G-Max Soup!

Then, finally, was the final battle against Avery, for the “armor”. It was a pretty tricky battle, but I managed to come out on top, and gain not only apprenticeship, but custody of Kubfu.

Kubfu is an interesting legendary Pokemon. One of the very few able to evolve. I decided to name them Kuufo, and have them be the 5th permanent member of my team.

I made my way back to the Wild Area, and after talking to a defeated Hop, stepped into Hammerlocke for the first time. Or as I like to call it, the “bigger city” to Motosoke’s “big city”.

Despite I think being smaller than Motosoke in terms of walkable space, it feels so much bigger. Maybe it’s the wideness of it, maybe it’s the history of the place, but I love it!

Next up was heading west through Route 6, where I’d quickly stumble upon a pair of Team Yell grunts trying to keep people from disturbing a sleeping Silicobra, while probably causing more commotion than anyone passing through. Such dorks.

After that, and a brief chat with Cara Liss, I made my way into Stow-on-Side. I knew nothing of this place beforehand, other than that it had amazing music. I used FiveNineSquared’s PMD EoS soundfont cover of it for inspiration when I was writing Moonlight Town in my PMD fanfic Eternal Shadows.

It’s a gorgeous town, giving me a feeling similar to Twilight Town of Kingdom Hearts 2.

Its atmosphere isn’t the only thing special about Stow-on-Side, though. It also has version-exclusive gym leaders. For some reason.

I like having more characters to use for my writing, so I’m not too upset? But I still don’t really like the concept of version exclusive stuff.

Nonetheless, since I was playing Shield, I faced Allister as my fourth gym leader. The gym puzzle was really fun, and he was rather tough! But I managed to scrounge together a win.

Immediately afterwards is some fun story stuff with Bede, in which he destroys a cultural mural in search of wishing stars and immediately gets disowned by Rose. Great character moment for everyone involved!

Proceeding into the Glimwood Tangle as my next stop, I want to quickly talk about atmosphere, and how I feel Shield excels at it.

There’s very few “generic” places in Shield, from my experience. Everything is so vibrant, unique, and full of atmosphere. Route 4 has its wheat fields, Route 5 has its massive bridge, even the Galar Mines feel very different from each other.

The forest areas, though, are absolutely stunning. I’ve already talked about the Slumbering Weald, but Glimwood Tangle is just as mysterious and awe-inspiring, from the glowing mushrooms, to the figures in the shadows, to the beautiful music. It’s an amazing location.

I also caught my sixth and final team member here, a Galarian Ponyta I named Paliero.

The gorgeous environments doesn’t even end there. We immediately get a whole town with that kind of atmosphere in Ballonlea, and I adore it.

One thing I quick want to touch on is the guy who wishes he could be a Pokemon. As a Meganium otherkin/therian, I relate heavily, and am glad that they aren’t made fun of for it. You can even help them find an outfit that’ll help them feel closer to being a Pokemon, which is appreciated.

Opal was a fun gym leader! It was really cool that her gym test was worked into both the story, with Bede’s arc, and the actual battle with her, with her quizzing you mid-fight. That was really fun!

Speaking of Bede, we see him again soon after in Hammerlocke, and Opal immediately decides he’ll be her apprentice, progressing Bede’s character arc, which is great!

This is about when I decided I’d keep playing as much as I can until I finish the game. I had gotten fully hooked on it, and I couldn’t wait to see what else it had in store.

The next town I needed to stop at was Circhester, and so I proceeded through grassy fields, ancient ruins, and a bit of ice, until I arrived at the home of the second pair of version-exclusive gym leaders. Because that’s still a thing for some reason.

Since I had Shield, my opponent was Melony, and her gym challenge was…rather frustrating. I kept falling into the holes over and over. But her fight itself was pretty fun! Her Lapras in particular was really tricky.

After that, it was time to get a nice, hot meal at Bob’s Your Uncle! …or so I thought. No actual food was served. Unfortunate. I’d love if Bob could actually sell me ingredients, so I could further my recipe collection.

Next up was Route 9, the penultimate numbered Route of the game, where I get to bike through an icy sea, where…people are sunbathing in the freezing cold? Strange, but interesting, and a lot of fun to navigate!

Afterwards was Spikemuth, the home of Team Yell. Man, do I wish we got to see more of them. They’re so much fun, but we see so little of them. There’s so much more that could be done with them, they have so much potential!

At the very least, though, we get one final confrontation with them here, and it’s a fun one. Full of shenaniganery.

Next up was Piers, and he’s one of my favorite fights in the game. Unique and wonderful music, and a fun, yet not too brutal challenge! Very great!

Exiting from Spikemuth, and heading into the tunnel back to Hammerlocke, there’s a report that a wild Dynamax Pokemon had been rampaging! Fun foreshadowing, but I kinda wish we got to see it in person. Still, I’m happy it’s there.

And, at last, it was time to finally fight Raihan, the final gym leader, in a double battle!

His gym trainers alone were already tough, but Raihan himself is a whole other beast. With weather control on his side, he was by far the trickiest battle so far. But I pulled through, and won my final gym badge.

Now I could travel to Wyndon, but first, Route 10, the closest thing this game has to a Victory Road. I know a lot of people don’t talk about it, but it really does feel close in atmosphere to the other regions’ Victory Roads, at least to me. I liked it a lot!

And then, at last, I was in the “biggest city”, Wyndon. A sprawling, massive city, with tons of people around. I just wish there was more to do here, but it’s still really cool!

It was time for the semifinals, where I’d have my final battles against Marnie and Hop.

First up was Marnie. Kuufu could take care of most of her dark-types, but they were still tricky to deal with, especially once she pulled out her Toxicroak, the only non-dark-type on her team. Her Grimmsnarl was no slouch, either.

Then was Hop, my first rival in the game, back for one final match. He’s learned much on his journey, as have I, and brought his Wooloo back on the team, now a Dubwool. I actually lost on my first go at him, but my second attempt brought me success!

Tomorrow was the finals, but first, we had to storm the Rose Tower in search of Leon.

The fights in the tower were fun, but I wish they had unique music. Zame made a really cool concept for a Macro Cosmos Grunt battle theme, and I wish that was in-game.

But as I reached the top, it was time to fight Oleana, and her fight was a really fun one, with some very groovy music. I also love that her ace is a Garbodor, those Pokemon need more love.

After all that, and coming back down, I had a startling, terrible realization: Almost everything in Wyndon is Rose-themed.

The tower? Rose Tower.

The hotel? Rose of the Rondelands.

Even the stadium looks like a giant rose.

It was terrifying, realizing how much of a grip Chairman Rose had on this city.

But I couldn’t do anything about that for now. For now, I had to face several of Galar’s gym leaders one more time, for the League Finals.

Bede was up first, and he had grown a lot since we now saw him. Now the fairy-type gym leader in Opal’s place, he was a true force to be reckoned with. Melva was the only member of my team strong against fairy-types, but his Hatterne’s Max Flare quickly put an end to that plan, and I had to scramble to take it down using Kuufo’s Iron Head.

Second was Nessa, who was here to show that being low in the gym order doesn’t mean you’re weak. I had no electic-type or grass-type moves, and the bug-type moves were devastating against Swilno, but even still, we made it through.

Third up was Allister. He may have had a stronger team now, but I had an even stronger one. Swilno managed to sweep most of his Pokemon, and Davulo took care of the rest.

Lastly was Raihan. Dragon-types are always pretty tough, but I had a fairy-type on my team now, Paliero. Combined with Mintar’s status moves, it was a relatively easy victory.

Before I could take on Leon, though, Chairman Rose interrupted the finals, declaring he’d bring about the Darkest Day. Shockingly realistic depiction of a CEO.

It was time to travel all the way back to the Slumbering Weald, in hopes of finding Zamazenta and Zacian to save the day. With Hop by my side, we trekked deep into the wilderness, far deeper than in the beginning of the game.

I always adore it when the start of a game is also the end or near-end of a game, and Pokemon Shield pulls it off wonderfully.

With Zamazenta now at my side, it was time to break into the Hammerlocke Power Plant and stop Chairman Rose.

I promptly got my tail kicked by him. Twice in a row.

He’s a very tough opponent. Steel is a formidable type, and all of his Pokemon share it. Mintar and Paliero couldn’t do much.

But I still had my fighting-type: Kuufo. They managed to take down Rose’s Copperjah on my third attempt, and stop this CEO for good.

At last, it was time to fight one of my favorite legendary Pokemon of all time: Eternatus.

I have so much lore thought up for my PMD version of Eternatus, but canon mainline Eternatus is a whole other beast. The largest Pokemon ever, with a backstory full of mystery, and full of terrifying power.

Phase 1 was very tricky, not helped by my nerves at this point. So few of my Pokemon could do big damage to Eternatus, but Davulo was the MVP here. My starter coming in clutch against this titan.

Then was Phase 2, where Eternatus’ power skyrocketed to the heavens. There was little I could do, but just wait…

…until Phase 3, where the Legendary Wolves arrived.

With them on my side, the fight was now a foregone conclusion. It was still an awesome and cinematic moment, though, and I loved every second of it.

And with Eternatus finally defeated, the end was in sight.

There was just one thing left to do before the credits: Take on Leon for the title of Champion of Galar.

He truly lived up to the title. He was the hardest challenge I had in the entire game, and it took every last one of my Pokemon to eek out a victory. Davulo, Melva, Swilno, Mintar, Kuufo, and Paliero. Each and every one of them gave it their absolute all to ensure my victory, and I couldn’t be prouder of them, as I was crowned Champion.

And with that, I had completed Pokemon Shield.

I’ll be doing the Crown Tundra, the rest of the Isle of Armor, and the postgame eventually, but for now, I’ve won.

It was a wonderful experience, from start to finish.

There were many things I had criticisms of, sure. I wish the plot was a bit more cohesive. I wish we saw more of several characters. I wish version exclusives weren’t a thing.

But the positives far outshone the negatives. I loved the characters, I loved the region, I loved the Pokemon.

And at the end of the day, the Pokemon are what it’s all about.

 

[Goolix]

Very interesting to read the perspective of someone who is newer to the games and came in through a different perspective! I am curious - do you ever plan to tackle Pokemon RBY and GSC? I know you are only doing one per region and you already had FireRed and SoulSilver, but do you have any interest in them?

Why is move relearning so restrictive in so many of the mainline Pokemon games? In Emerald, X, Firered, and Black, it requires an entire Heart Scale in order to let your Pokemon relearn a single move. And unless I've been very unlucky, Heart Scales are very hard to find.

On the topic of moves, learning them to begin with is weird too. So many move tutors are functionally just early-gen TMs, with them saying that they'll only teach the move once. It makes me nervous and less likely to ask them to teach my Pokemon moves, because move relearning is so difficult, and I don't want to waste this one chance to learn these moves.

"Early installment weirdness" is definitely one way to put it. I think there are a few reasons they're so weird about learning moves.

TM expendability is a way to "add challenge" to the games. TMs often (though not always...) have really useful moves you want. I think the designers thought that letting you reuse TMs or acquire them more easily would make the games easier. I'm playing GSC on 7x speed now and playing them this quickly makes you realize that there isn't as much "game" as it seems like when you play at normal speed. Basically, I think it's a cheap way to make the game more challenging.

I also think it ties in with the move relearning thing, where they really wanted you to commit to your decisions. Move relearning wasn't possible at all in the first two gens if I recall correctly. You really only got one chance to learn a move, there would be no description of the move, and if you didn't learn it, too bad! I think this was a decision to make you feel more purposeful about what you did rather than swapping out moves willy-nilly. They might also have thought it was simpler to only have 4 moves you can use, period, rather than selecting 4 from a big pool of moves.

I don't think it was really necessary and what it led to down the line was basically people avoiding using TMs because you don't want to waste a precious rare move. The move relearning punishment is also pretty harsh for no good reason. I understand the TM thing better because ultimately, TMs are supposed to have high quality moves and they want to keep some level of challenge. Move relearning, on the other hand, is literally about getting something you already had in the past that you either forgot or chose to pass up on. There's no risk to challenge.

Speaking of Entei (and Raikou), I don't understand their pathing at all. They seem to travel completely randomly on the map, seemingly teleporting several routes over every time I enter an area. How am I supposed to corner them and encounter them? Or is there some other trick to it than clever maneuvering?

There is a strategy to it which I don't remember well - you are supposed to get a lot of repels with a Pokemon just below their level with Mean Look and basically enter the same area over and and over. The beasts - at least in GSC - moved to adjacent routes when you walked between locations, and to random routes when you flied. Eventually, you'll trigger a fight with them. This guide explains the logic for the GSC games. I believe something similar is at play in other games.

 

[IFBench]

Hi bestgaragedoors! Thank you so much for being the first to comment on my retrospectives here, it means a lot to me that you're interested!

Very interesting to read the perspective of someone who is newer to the games and came in through a different perspective! I am curious - do you ever plan to tackle Pokemon RBY and GSC? I know you are only doing one per region and you already had FireRed and SoulSilver, but do you have any interest in them?

As for the question of if I'll play RBY and GSC...probably not?

I'm not exactly doing only one game per region, but one game per...I'll call them sub-generations. Games that came out together in a group. For example, Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald would be a sub-generation, and I'd only be playing Emerald out of them. But I'll also be playing Alpha Sapphire, even though it's still the same region, since it's from a different sub-generation.

The exceptions, at least for right now, are RBY, GSC, and BDSP.

RBY and GSC are because they lack a ton of the quality of life features of later Pokemon games, while (at least from my understanding) not bringing much unique to the table that their remakes don't provide.

Yellow has the special partner Pikachu, but I can also get that with an Eevee in Let's Go Eevee.

Crystal has the special encounters with Suicune, but those are also in Soulsilver.

And I'd have to slog through early-installment weirdness, to an even greater extent than in Emerald and Firered. And those games were brutal for me.

BDSP, meanwhile, I'm avoiding because I heard that it changes very, very little from Diamond and Pearl.

If I were to play them, though, I'd play Yellow, Crystal, and Brillian Diamond out of those three sub-generations.

And who knows? Maybe I could be persuaded to play them. If you have any reasons why you think I should play any of those three sub-generations, feel free to let me know!

Thank you again for the comment!

 

[IFBench]

Hi! Been a while since I posted here, but not to worry! I've been busy working on my mainline Pokemon playthroughs!

I'm suffering a bit of writer's block with my Legends ZA retrospective, since there's a LOT I want to say, but I'm doing a little thing to tide you all over until then!

I'm going to share a few screenshots of my teams from all the mainline Pokemon playthroughs I've done/am currently doing for this marathon so far, and share a few fun extra tidbits I hadn't put in my retrospectives!

The games I'm going to be talking about here are:
- Firered
- Emerald
- Platinum
- Soulsilver
- Black 1
- Black 2
- X
- Alpha Sapphire
- Sun
- Let's Go Eevee
- Shield
- Brilliant Diamond
- Violet
- Legends ZA

I'm also planning on playing the following games as part of my retrospective, though I haven't started my playthroughs for them yet, or in the case of Legends Arceus, I've been unable to find the cartridge so I can start my replaythrough:
- Yellow
- Crystal
- Colosseum
- XD
- Ultra Moon
- Legends Arceus

Yes, I know I previously said I wasn't planning on playing RBGY, GSC, or BDSP, but people have been requesting them, so here you go! I hope you enjoy!

Also, since TR only allows for 10 file attachments in a post, this'll be split up into two posts, each with 7 attachments.

With that out of the way, let's begin this little bonus!

Firered - Postgame

Firered is...definitely the most mixed I've felt on a mainline Pokemon game. There were a bunch of fun parts, sure, but also a lot of difficult and boring parts. I still enjoyed the experience, yeah, but if I was going to replay a Pokemon game from the beginning, Firered would likely be one of my last choices.
However, that didn't mean I never wanted to ever play the game again. I still had the Sevii Islands to explore! I still hadn't even set foot on Islands Four through Seven, not to mention the bonus islands!
Unfortunately, on June 19th of 2024, the computer I had my Firered and Emerald save files on died, and I seemingly lost them forever. I'd have to replay the entire games if I wanted to see the rest of the Sevii Islands in Firered, or the Battle Frontier in Emerald. And...that wasn't exactly something I was willing to do.
Until I met tfbwel, who, if you're reading this, THANK YOU.
After we became friends through them playing PMD Gates to Infinity, I told them about my lost GBA Pokemon save files, and they offered to recreate them for me, by playing through the entire games with my teams, going off what I remembered about them and my retrospectives.
In January of this year, my GBA Pokemon save files were brought back to life, and you all have tfbwel to thank for when I eventually make a proper post on the Sevii Islands.

Emerald - Postgame

Emerald! The very first game I played as part of this marathon. What a ride it was, full of ups and downs, and it kicked off this whole crazy journey of mine. Before this started, I was just a PMD fan who occasionally delved into mainline Pokemon every once in a while. Now I'm a fan of mainline Pokemon, too!
So, you know how in my Emerald retrospective, I said I couldn't remember why I started with Emerald? Well, I finally remembered! Back in 2022, I had played PokeMMO with my best friend, and we had chosen Hoenn for our starting region! We unfortunately stopped the playthrough soon after getting our first badges from Roxanne, but when I decided to start this marathon, I originally planned on resuming my PokeMMO playthrough...until I learned that PokeMMO buffs the difficulty of every game it includes. Which...as someone who was still very new to mainline Pokemon, was not something I wanted to put up with, especially since I had already struggled a fair bit in that little bit of PokeMMO I had played. So I switched to Emerald proper, and so began my marathon!

Platinum - 4 Badges

Platinum was one of the hardest Pokemon games for me to get ahold of. I heard that Platinum made use of the touchscreen a bit, so I wanted to get my vines on a physical copy. Unfortunately, the retro game market is...bad, and I couldn't find any real cartridges of it that were under $100.
I kept searching, though, until I found an...interesting looking website claiming to have a bunch of retro games for relatively cheap, including a bunch of Pokemon games. I decided, what the heck, and decided to buy Platinum from them.
About two weeks later, it arrived...along with catridges for Diamond and Pearl. Three entire DS-era Pokemon games, for under $20, in 2024.
I'm very impressed! The Platinum cartridge works very well, even being compatible with my old Action Replay. I have no idea how lucky I was to stumble upon this find, but it was really nice!

Soulsilver - Postgame

Soulsilver, the first Pokemon game I ever owned. I actually used to have the strategy guide for it a long time ago, but I've been unable to find it these days. I still don't remember a ton about my first playthrough, but a few little factoids about it have come back to me since I made my retrospective.
For one, the cartridge was shared between me and my youngest sibling. If you were wondering why the Meganium therian ever chose Cyndaquil, well, first of all, I wasn't aware I was a therian back then, and second of all, my sibling wanted Cyndaquil, so we went with Cyndaquil.
Being as we were both very young at the time, we made some stupid mistakes, like releasing valuable Pokemon, and putting an everstone on our Cyndaquil for the entire time we had the game, so it'd learn the cooler-sounding moves faster. And then I wondered why the game was so difficult and frustrating, when I was the one who was making it difficult and frustrating.

Black 1 - Postgame

Black 1 is probably the Pokemon game I knew the most about through cultural osmosis before I started properly playing mainline Pokemon. I honestly have no idea how I even ended up with the game, admittedly. I just looked through my bag of DS games one day on 2020, and...it was there. I started playing it, but like I said during my retrospective, I grew bored of it before the first gym, and gave up until this marathon. I don't remember a whole lot of that first playthrough, but I do remember I chose Oshawott, and named them Atlantic. This was before I started making up names for my Pokemon. You can actually see a bit of that with Acacia, since they're based off my PMD RTDX partner, who I also named while I was still giving characters names that were pre-existing words. Pahelia, my Explorers of Sky partner, was the first character I remember making up a name wholesale for.

Black 2 - 0 Badges

As you can see by the above image, I...haven't gotten very far in Black 2 yet. I'm still very earlygame, in the ranch. I do actually have some hazy memories of playing this game a long time ago, though. Either Black 2 or White 2, I can't remember which, but it was back when video game rentals were still a big thing. I had rented it and Explorers of Time, and...didn't get far at all in either. With Explorers of Time, I had no idea how to control my character, and couldn't get past the first floor of the first dungeon. With BW 2...I think I continued from the pre-existing save file on it, because I remember being lost in Pokestar Studios and having no idea what to do. That, and finding a Pichu near a body of water are my only memories of playing BW 2 before this marathon.

X - Postgame

X is interesting to look back on in the wake of Legends ZA. I liked it before, but I like it even more now. The story, world, and Pokemon of Kalos are enhanced by the existence of Legends ZA, and while I plan on talking more about that in my Legends ZA retrospective, I'll just say that Legends ZA is my new favorite mainline Pokemon game. But as for X, it's still very cool! I love how it used 3D, and innovated the series to new and great heights, with stuff like omnidirectional movement and Mega Evolution! I think it was a good choice for me to have it as my second mainline Pokemon game after Emerald. Contrasting the 2D and the 3D, and showing how far things have come since the GBA.

To be continued in Part 2!

 

[IFBench]

Hi! This is the second part of a bonus post for my Pokemon retrospectives, where I show off my teams from each mainline Pokemon game I've already played/am playing, and talk about some extra bonus facts too! If you haven't seen the previous part yet, I recommend doing that, it's the previous post.

Alpha Sapphire - 3 Badges

Alpha Sapphire is the first remake I've played of a previous mainline Pokemon game I've played! It's very interesting seeing the Hoenn region reimagined through this new lens. Not only that, though, but it's been cool playing the game with a different starter than the one I used in Emerald! ...yeah, I know I'm still using a Linoone and a Swellow, but I'm attached to them after my Emerald playthrough, and I'm planning on giving them different movesets here! One thing I really like about this game is the DexNav feature. It's so cool being able to see what Pokemon I've caught so far on a given route, and without me being able to use a guide per this challenge's rules, it's a huge motivator for me to try to complete the Pokedex in this game. I'm kinda sad this feature didn't come back until Legends ZA, it's really cool!

Sun - 2 Island Trials

Sun was technically the second game I started as part of this marathon, but like I said in my X retrospective, I took a long break from it after the house with all the broken golf clubs, and only started back on it again this month after a few friends of mine wanted to see me liveblog it. As the very first mainline Pokemon game not restricted to a strict tile grid system, it's really fascinating seeing how much more varied the overworlds are made compared to previous games. Even just the basic routes go in all sorts of directions, like climbing diagonally up a rocky hill. This is part of why I love the transition to 3D for Pokemon, and why I don't think it gets enough credit for unbinding mainline Pokemon from the orthogonal directions.

Let's Go Eevee - 3 Badges

Let's Go Eevee is such a fascinating game to me. The only Pokemon generation that got remade twice, once with Firered/Leafgreen, then with Let's Go. I know a bunch of people hate it for being "another Kanto remake", but the last time the Kanto games were properly playable was FRLG on the GBA, back before we even had the physical/special split. I feel like it was overdue for another look. I'm having a lot more fun so far with Let's Go Eevee than I did with Firered! It's really nice having the quality of life features from later generations, like universal EXP share and being able to use PC boxes anywhere. I also really like the partner Eevee. Some may call them too overpowered, but even with Buzzy Buzz on Jackie, I've still been struggling a fair bit. I think it's a big improvement from FRLG, and I really hope we get a Johto Let's Go game soon.

Shield - Postgame

Shield, oh Pokemon Shield. I know I've said it before, but I love Shield a lot. It's one of my top 3 favorite mainline Pokemon games so far, and it was an absolute joy to play. One thing I love about it that I don't think I mentioned before, though, is it's UI. I think it's a nice balance between being simplistic, while still having a lot of character. I love the icons on the X-button menu, I was looking forward to unlocking all of them when I was just starting out the game. I especially have to give a shoutout to the Town Map, whose UI was so fascinating and cool to me that it inspired me to make an entire in-universe tumblr post about how Town Maps differ from region to region.

Brilliant Diamond - 0 Badges

I have absolutely no idea how I came into possession of Brilliant Diamond. As far as I know, it just manifested in my Switch games collection one day. As you can see by the above screenshot, I've only just barely started it. I'm waiting to play much more until I at least finish Platinum, since I know BDSP lacks a lot of things from Platinum. It's part of the reason I wasn't planning on playing it for this marathon originally, along with Yellow and Crystal. I just thought they wouldn't have anything new to offer, compared to Platinum, Firered/Let's Go Eevee, and Soulsilver. But there were several requests for me to play them, and since I already have Brilliant Diamond, I figured...why not, might as well. Who knows, maybe I'll enjoy them much more than I expected, just like with mainline Pokemon as a whole!

Violet (Replaythrough) - 6 Badges

Violet, along with Legends Arceus, are the two games in this marathon that aren't first-time or practically first-time playthroughs. I had played both up to the end credits back in 2022, so for those two, the retrospectives won't be my first-time thoughts. Is that a bit unfair? Maybe, but I can't exactly erase the memories from my mind, and I did really like both of these games, and wanted to give them another go. It's an interesting experience, replaying a Pokemon game that I had beaten. Violet is probably the best one I could have done for my first replaythrough, since it's so open-ended. In my first playthrough, I started through the West Gate from Mesagoza. This playthrough, I started through the East Gate. This has already changed my experience a lot, and I'm excited to see how it continues to change.

Legends ZA - 100% Completion

Legends ZA, so far, is the only Pokemon game I've 100%ed. I've completed the main story, the postgame story, the DLC story, all 200+ sidequests, caught every Pokemon in both the base game and the DLC, got every mega stone, and it was an absolute blast. It's my new favorite mainline Pokemon game, and my second favorite Pokemon game of all time, falling short only to PMD Gates to Infinity. I'm so excited yet nervous to talk about it in my retrospective, but I've unfortunately been having some nasty writer's block about it. This has also been affecting my Legends ZA and PMD crossover fic, In Tandem DX (which you should all read (if you want)). But I hope to get the retrospective out in the coming weeks, and I hope you all enjoy it!

That's all for now! I hope you all enjoyed this little bonus episode for my mainline Pokemon retrospectives!

 

[rimly]

i find this whole series of posts really interesting to read! its really a lot of fun getting to see your perspective, i dont have a lot to add other then i really really enjoy it and find it a very fun read! you have a great way of expressing your likes and dislikes and its fun :) great job overall!

 

[IFBench]

Pokemon Let’s Go Eevee Retrospective, from the perspective of someone who preferred it over FRLG​

To preface this, one of the first things I heard about mainline Pokemon when I first started getting into it was that Let’s Go “wasn’t worth playing”. That it was a very shallow remake compared to FRLG, and that even the originals on the Gameboy were better than it.

I wanted to give it a shot as part of this marathon, though, so I asked for it for my birthday in 2024, and I started playing it the same day I got it.

As you can see from the title of this retrospective, I do not agree with what I’ve heard about Let’s Go. I think it’s perfectly deserving of the title of “Ultimate Kanto”.

Let’s Go Eevee is in my top 3 favorite mainline Pokemon games.

Its opening is very cute, with it being like my Eevee has pulled me into the Pokemon world. And judging by the player character’s reaction, I guess that’s implied to be the case? Interesting.

After inspecting some stuff around the room, the game’s rival, Trace, comes to greet me.

I have a lot to say about this kid. He’s such a fun alternate take on Blue, and I quite like him! I know the fandom likes to either hate on him or pretend he doesn’t exist, but I think that’s doing him a big disservice, especially given that I feel his character growth throughout the game is far more impactful than Blue’s in Firered.

But most of that was for later. For now, I headed to Route 1, to find Professor Oak taking data on some Pidgeys. Before he could escort me back to the lab, though, surprise! A wild Eevee appeared, and it was up to me to catch her!

Catching in Let’s Go is much different than in the rest of mainline, and is much closer to Go than Firered. You don’t have to carefully attack the wild Pokemon, trying to get its HP as low as possible without fainting it. Instead, you just chuck the ball and hope for the best. There’s more intricacies to it than that, of course, but I didn’t know those at the time.

People rag on the catching in Let’s Go, but I actually quite like it! It’s much less stressful, since you don’t have to worry about fainting the Pokemon you’re trying to catch, and the game supplies you with plenty of poke balls.

My poke ball hit true, and I caught my first Pokemon in this game: Jackie the Eevee. A very, very special Eevee, as I would soon see.

But now that I had an Eevee, I could traverse up Rote 1, catching a Pidgey along the way, who I named Lynno. It’s really cool that wild Pokemon appear on the overworld now, rather than being complete random surprises whenever I take too many steps in tall grass or caves.

After arriving in Viridian, I found three people I was absolutely not expecting to see here: The Team Rocket Trio from the anime. Jesse, James, and Meowth. I knew they were in Masters, sure, but here? It was a big surprise, and even if Meowth doesn’t talk here, I’m still really happy they’re here.

Anyways, I made my way back to Pallet Town with the parcel in my bag, and delivered it to Professor Oak. As a reward, I got my first battle, against Trace! And some Razz Berries too I guess.

Let’s Go Eevee’s battle UI is pretty neat! The run button has been omitted (for now at least), since you can’t run from trainer battles, and the wild Pokemon UI is completely different. There’s just the buttons for fighting, items, and switching Pokemon, all cool and stylized without being overly complex.

With that out of the way, it was time to start my journey for real! I headed back up Route 1, through Viridian City, up Route 2, and into the Viridian Forest.

I guess technically this was my third time being here? There was Firered, obviously, but a friend of mine had pointed out on my X retrospective that the Santalune Forest has the exact same layout as Viridian Forest. It’s very interesting, then, that all three times I’ve been here have felt very different.

In Firered,it felt lonely, anxious, like I was wandering off the beaten path. In X, it felt comforting, since I had friends doing shenanigans with me.

Here in Let’s Go Eevee, it felt somewhere in between. It still felt a bit foreboding, but something about it also felt welcoming. Was it the sunlight filtering through the treetops? Was it that Pokemon were roaming out and about, instead of lurking in the tall grass? Was it that my friend Jackie the Eevee was resting on my head? Or was it simple familiarity and nostalgia? Perhaps a combination of all of the above.

Whatever the case may be, I soon made it out, and arrived in Pewter City.

I figure now’s as good a time as any to talk about this game’s Town Map. I quite like it, personally! I think it’s a really effective UI design that still keeps the core elements of the Firered Town Map. You can even see a little list of important landmarks when you hover over cities, which is really nice.

Anyways, after exploring around Pewter, I entered the gym, only to be stopped by the gym greeter guy. Apparently, I couldn’t challenge the gym unless I had a grass or water-type Pokemon in my team.

This was the first of what I’m calling “gym gates”, an arbitrary gate that prevents you from challenging the gym until you’ve met certain requirements. I…don’t like these, honestly. There’s only four that actually do anything, as far as I can tell, but those four each are annoying in their own ways.

My main issue with them is that they feel so…not pointless, but tiring. I can get what they were going for, making sure you don’t face the gym leader unprepared, but if I want to challenge Brock with just an Eevee and a Pidgey, I should be able to! I shouldn’t have to backtrack to catch a Bellsprout just so I can even enter the gym. It feels tedious.

But I didn’t have any other options, so backtrack and catch a Bellsprout I did. I never ended up naming them, unfortunately, since they were only a temporary team member, but they easily cleaved through Brock’s team, and I got my first badge.

At the very least, it was less frustrating than in Firered, but still.

With one badge on my belt, I made my way east, and entered Mount Moon. It was pretty much the same as in Firered, aside from random encounters not making me want to pull my leaf out. I did get to see the Team Rocket trio again, and to my surprise, engaged them in a double battle!

Double battles, as far as I recall, weren’t a thing at all in Firered, so to see Kanto in Let’s Go Eevee have double battles was a really nice surprise!

Jackie and Lynno were able to defeat them, though, and I grabbed myself a Dome Fossil, before exiting the mountain, soon arriving at Cerulean City.

It looks a lot more impressive here than it did on the GBA. The buildings all look unique, and I really like the addition of the fountain.

In its Pokemon Center, though, I was about to learn what made Jackie such a special Eevee: The partner moves.

See, there’s special move tutors in some of Kanto’s Pokemon Centers, that’ll offer to teach your Eevee some very special moves, based on one of the eight Eeveelutions. The selection in Cerulean was Bouncy Bubble, Buzzy Buzz, or Sizzly Slide.

I decided to go with Buzzy Buzz, a 90 base power move that always paralyzes the target when it hits (besides electric-types, of course). A very nice choice, I think.

Now that Jackie was powered up, it was time for me to take on the gym!

Cerulean’s gym gate wasn’t too bad, at least. It only needed me to have a Pokemon that was at least level 15. Jackie was only level 14, though, so I headed over to Nugget Bridge to fight some trainers.

Before I could, though, Trace ran into me, and asked for a battle, to which I happily obliged.

While Zappy Zap made quick work of his Pidgey, it was a bit tougher to deal with his Oddish and Pikachu, but I still won, and Jackie reached level 15.

Now, I was able to take on the Cerulean City gym!

Buzzy Buzz predictably made the gym very easy, which I feel is actually kinda a good thing? It’s a great showcase of how powerful this new move was.

I netted myself my second Kanto badge, and went back to Nugget Bridge.

…or I would have, if I hadn’t gotten distracted with other games. I actually took a year and a half hiatus from Let’s Go Eevee after the Cerulean gym. It wasn’t anything wrong with the game, I just got very, very distracted. But this year, I finally got back to it.

Now that it wasn’t my first time in Kanto, the nugget guy being a Team Rocket grunt wasn’t a surprise at all, but it’s nice seeing these moments from Firered again.

I made my way to Bill’s house, and you have no idea how delighted I was that he was turned into a quadruped, a Nidorino. There’s so little representation of sapient quadrupeds in fiction, with PMD being the only big media I can think of with a bunch of them. So to see a character in mainline be a talking quadrupedal Pokemon, however briefly, was really nice for my Meganium self.

I helped him back to normal, and got some S.S. Anne tickets for my troubles. Walking back to Cerulean, I traveled south, catching a Vulpix along the way (who I named Ralefa), and went into the underground tunnel.

Here, one of the NPCs told me something very interesting: Pokemon can signal hidden items to you with their tails. Essentially, Jackie’s tail would wag faster and faster the closer I was to a hidden item.

I really like this! It adds very cute flavor to the concept of dowsing machines, and removes the need for a dedicated item for it, by packing it all into my Veevee friend.

Exiting the tunnel, I saw an Abra and caught him, naming him Tarlo, before proceeding into Vermillion City.

The S.S. Anne felt a lot less frustrating than in Firered, partly because there was a healer NPC right near the entryway. There were still dozens of rooms to explore, but without as much threat, it was more fun than stressful.

I enjoyed the cute little scene with Jackie on the bow of the ship. That was a nice touch.

Eventually, I ran into Trace, who asked me for another battle. His Pidgey had evolved, but he was still a relatively easy opponent, and I was able to make it past to help the ship’s captain.

Here, I received the first of five “secret techniques”: Chop Down. Basically the HMs of the game, except they didn’t take up move slots, and Jackie is the one to learn them all. Interestingly, it seems the secret techniques are normally something humans can do? Which has some fascinating worldbuilding implications.

But that’s for a future worldbuilding post, because now it was time for me to take on Lt. Surge’s gym…after a surprise battle with a character I had never seen before, Mina. She had a few fairy-types on her team, and said she’s visiting from Alola. I guess she’s from the Alola games? Interesting inclusion, but not one I’m complaining about.

Thankfully, the gym gate this time was trivial, since it was just knowing Chop Down. Same as in Firered, except perhaps even less stringent this time.

Surge’s gym puzzle was the same bizarre trash can guessing game as in Firered. I have no idea why it’s a thing, or why it has remained this way throughout so many games. It’s just annoying and tedious.

Surge at least was a pretty fun fight. Since I couldn’t use Buzzy Buzz, he was quite tricky, but I still managed to pull through, and won both my third Kanto badge, and his autograph. For some reason.

With that out of the way, I was going to head back north, until Misty stopped me to show me Diglett’s Cave. I figured, why not, and decided to head through it.

On the other side, I suddenly became very glad I went here, since Jackie got access to another secret technique: Light Up. I wouldn’t have to stumble around in the dark in Rock Tunnel!

I made my way over to Cerulean City, and chopped down the tree blocking me from heading east. The route wasn’t much to write about, but what was at the end sure was.

I was ambushed by a group of Rocket grunts, seemingly about to face off in a 1V4, until who shows up to save the day but Elite Four member Lorelei, riding on her Lapras in the nearby waterway.

This was completely new to Let’s Go, and was a brilliant addition for many reasons, some of which I’ll get to later, but the main one was just…actually showing any of the Elite Four before you arrive at Indigo Plateau, rather than you only knowing they’ll be there because that’s how mainline Pokemon works. Even if it’s just Lorelei and none of the others, I’m still really happy this little event was added.

But then, it was time for me to enter the Rock Tunnel: my least favorite area in Firered. Would it be as bad here?

In short, not quite, but it’s still my second least favorite area in this game.

While it was much easier to navigate with Light Up than in total darkness, and without random encounters every other step, it still wasn’t fun. It was just boring rocky corridors with nothing interesting in between, aside from an overabundance of tough trainers.

I was nearly out of healing items at all by the time I finally made it out. I know I could have just backtracked to the Pokemon Center, but the Rock Tunnel is surprisingly long so that’s a lot of backtracking that I’d rather not do.

At least now that I was out of there, I was at my favorite town in Kanto: Lavender Town.

I adore Lavender Town in this game. It retains the creepy-yet-calming vibe from Firered, but also makes it feel so much more alive, for lack of a better term.

After healing my Pokemon, I headed up the Pokemon Tower, eager to see what the Ghost looks like in this game, only to run into Trace for another battle.

He’s been getting tougher, and evolved both his Pikachu and his Oddish. No longer was he trivial to deal with, I actually had to work for that win.

Here’s where Trace started to become one of my favorite rivals in Pokemon. The Cubone storyline.

I followed the Cubone up to the next floor, and got a glimpse at the new Ghost design. It was every bit as eerie as I was hoping, and them slowly chasing you was a really nice touch.

I was sent back to the start of the tower by one, and decided to wait to try again until I had the Silph Scope. Instead, I headed west towards Celadon, after seeing the Team Rocket trio trick the Cubone into coming with them.

Along the way, a friend of mine helped me evolve Tarlo into an Alakazam, the first fully-evolved Pokemon on my team. This was also around when I decided, “hey, the Kanto pokedex is only 151 Pokemon long. I could totally catch ‘em all,” and started trying to catch every new species of Pokemon I saw. I’m very grateful I started this now, as you’ll see why later.

Unfortunately, while I was trying to talk to everyone around Celadon, I somehow missed the most important person in the city: the guy outside the Game Corner who teaches your Eevee the secret technique Sky Dash, which is essentially HM Fly.

At least there was plenty for me in the Pokemon Center. The special move tutor was back, offering to teach Jackie a new selection of moves, Glitzy Glow or Baddy Bad, representing Espeon and Umbreon respectively. I decided to go with Baddy Bad, since Tarlo already had psychic-type covered on my team. It’s exactly like Buzzy Buzz, except dark-type, and instead of paralyzing the opponent it puts up a Reflect barrier for five turns. Quite nice!

There was also someone else in the Center, offering to trade a Kantonian Vulpix for their Alolan Vulpix. I didn’t want to trade away Ralefa, so I went back to Route 7 to catch an extra to trade.

For the most part, it was a really nice deal. I love Alolan Vulpix and Ninetales, and I’ve never had any sort of Vulpix or Ninetales on my teams before. It’s also a really good typing for Kanto, since Kanto doesn’t have a lot of fairy-types. In addition, with my best friend, I’ve been doing a RP where a human gets turned into a Vulpix and adopted by a wild Ninetales, so the species was on my mind.

There was one little gripe I had, though: The Vulpix was stuck with his species name only, and I was unable to change it. Which…kinda irked me. I understand not being able to change the names of Pokemon you got from trades as long as they already had names, but…this Vulpix was nameless, and I couldn’t give him anything to call his own.

At least I had two fluffy fox friends now. Three if Jackie counts as a fox.

I decided to explore the Department Store, and found a side to the game that I hadn’t done much of anything with until now: dress-up. There were all sorts of outfits for both myself and Jackie on sale. I decided to go with an emerald bandana on her tail.

On the roof, Jackie immediately ran up to the vending machine, and begged me for a drink. I of course got her the most luxurious beverage on offer: plain lemonade.

With the majority of Celadon explored, I decided to head into the gym before tackling the Game Corner. I…admittedly have no idea what the gym gate here is supposed to check? They asked for “cute Pokemon”, so I showed them Jackie, and they let me in. I mean, Jackie is adorable, yes, but a bit of a bizarre interruption.

Erika’s gym was much more interesting than in Firered. Instead of just being “use Cut and win!” it was an actual maze. Not the most complex maze, yes, but still interesting. The gym trainers gave me a bit of trouble, as did Erika herself, but it wasn’t long before I walked away with my fourth Kanto badge.

Now, it was time for me to infiltrate the Rocket Hideout.

First step was exploring the Game Corner. While I understand why the slot machines and gambling mechanics were removed (and am very glad for it, those things were so rigged in Emerald), I’m kinda sad that nothing else was put in to take their place. No cute little minigames or anything. Surely it couldn’t be that difficult to put in Surfing Pikachu from Yellow in here, right?

Either way, I pressed the secret switch behind the rocket poster, and descended down below.

After taking care of the initial Rocket grunt in the way, I met someone who declared themselves a “beautiful spy” and healed my Pokemon. A nice little bit of accessibility, just like in the S.S. Anne.

Most of the rest of the hideout isn’t much to write about, until I got to the bottom floor, where my enjoyment of Let’s Go Eevee reached new heights.

First of all, the Rocket grunt who’s supposed to leave behind the Lift Key instead throws it up onto the wall partitions, rendering it unreachable by me. Fortunately, I had a friend with me, Jackie. I helped her reach a vent, and then…I actually got to play as Jackie for a short bit! It was so cool and awesome and amazing! It reminded me a bit of the short bit I played of the Crystal romhack Pokemon Prism, where you briefly play as your Larvitar starter exploring a tunnel.

Jackie got the Lift Key and returned safely to me, and now I could go on to face Giovanni…or so I thought. There were two more roadblocks in my way.

First was Jesse and James and Meowth, back for Round 2. They were much tougher this time, and took a bit to beat.

After that was…Team Rocket admin Archer?!

I was stunned. Archer hadn’t even existed as a character until HGSS. He was completely nameless in GSC, and Rocket Admins at all had no presence in what I played of Firered. This was completely new and original to Let’s Go, and I was so happy. It wasn’t that tough of a battle, but it was still so cool seeing a character from Soulsilver here in Kanto!

With that out of the way, it was time for my first battle with Giovanni. I still had Double Kick on Jackie at this time, so she was able to make quick work of his Persian and Rhyhorn, and walked away with the Silph Scope, and a freed Cubone.

Now that I was about halfway through the game, I decided it was a good time to evolve my foxes. Besides Jackie, of course. I purchased a Fire Stone and Ice Stone from the Department Store, and used them on Ralefa and Vulpix respectively. More floof per floof!

Brock also made a brief appearance, and delivered some tea for me. Now I could get into Saffron!

I made my way back to Lavender Town, and started properly climbing up the Pokemon Tower. The Silph Scope revealed the majority of the Ghosts to just be ghost-type Pokemon, so it was a relatively easy trek with Jackie’s move Baddy Bad. The spell tag circle this time felt much more inviting and calming, especially with one of the channelers welcoming me in.

Eventually, I reached the penultimate floor, and found an absolutely massive Ghost. The mother of the Cubone that Team Rocket had kidnapped. There was a really emotional scene of the Cubone trying to reach out for her, only for her to fade away. I shed a few tears.

Then comes the reason I love Trace so much: he decides to take the Cubone with him as a team member. And you see it on his team in future battles!

Cubone actually being present during all of this stuff makes this whole storyline from a throwaway series of fetch quests into something truly special, and I adore it.

With Trace staying behind to comfort the Cubone, I pressed on, and battled Jesse and James again to free Mr. Fuji…only for him to say he hadn’t even noticed they were there. At least I got a Poke Flute for it.

Saffron, just like in Firered, was taken over by Team Rocket, with most citizens hiding in buildings like the Pokemon Center. It was up to me and Trace to free the city.

After a short battle with a surprise guest, that is. Blue decided to show up and test us both, trying to make sure we were ready. Baddy Bad and Buzzy Buzz easily dealt with his Exeggutor and Charizard, though.

Compared to Firered, I was much more methodical in my scouring of Silph Co. Explore the outer areas first, and only take warp pads when I had done all else I could do on a floor.

I kept going, floor by floor, until I ran into a familiar face: Archer. Trace and I engaged him in a double battle, where I got to see for the first time that Trace had added the Cubone to his team. We defeated Archer, and I was able to nab the Card Key. Now nowhere in Silph was off-limits to me.

I continued exploring, and ran into another familiar face: the “beautiful spy” from the Rocket Hideout, who healed my Pokemon. I really like that they’re a recurring healer NPC, it’s a nice touch.

It was also here where someone gifted me my final team member: Sevlio the Lapras.

Archer ran up to try and stop me, but Trace held him off, and it was up to me and my team to take on Giovanni. There was a final battle with the Team Rocket trio in between this too, but it wasn’t really anything of note.

The dialogue you overhear just before the battle with Giovanni is rather interesting. It seems like Team Rocket and Silph Co were in some sort of collaboration? There’s mentions of a deal, and hints at shady stuff going on behind the scenes, rife for fanfic potential.

But that’s for another time. It was time for me to battle Giovanni again…and Jackie still soloed most of his team, only needing Tarlo for the final hit against his Nidoqueen.

Saffron was now freed of Team Rocket’s influence, and now it was time for me to take on the gym.

I made a quick pitstop at the Fighting Dojo to take it on too, and Lynno and Tarlo had a mostly easy time with it.

The Saffron gym gate needed me to have a level 40 Pokemon to enter, and luckily Jackie was quite a bit higher than that thanks to all the Rocket grunts in Silph Co.

The gym aesthetic here is immaculate. I really have to give credit where it’s due, Let’s Go does an amazing job at giving the Kanto gyms a massive glowup.

Sabrina’s gym trainers and Sabrina herself were all pretty tricky, even with Baddy Bad on Jackie. I had to leave a couple times to heal my Pokemon, but eventually I emerged victorious with my fifth Kanto badge.

With Saffron’s gym defeated, I headed over to Route 16 to wake the Snorlax there.

To my surprise, it was an actual battle! And a pretty tough one too!

Unlike most wild Pokemon encounters in Let’s Go, it seems static encounters, such as the Snorlax, are closer to regular mainline wild Pokemon encounters, minus the careful HP manipulation. I had to defeat the Snorlax before I could try to catch it.

There was also an additional mechanic here: the Match Timer. It started at five minutes, and kept constantly ticking down throughout the battle, even during menus and battle animations. I have slightly mixed feelings about this. It’s a really good way to add tension and put pressure on you, but…I also don’t really like time limits.

In any case, I defeated the Snorlax, and caught it, freeing the way to Cycling Road. Or…Pokemon Road now.

I made a quick detour to the secret house up north, hoping to get the HM Fly equivalent, but…only TM Fly was there. No fast travel for me.

So where did I have to go to find my fast travel, then?

I sighed, and went to travel down Pokemon Road. The correct way this time, not backwards like in Firered.

It’s a very different experience than in Firered, that’s for sure. No bicycles or slopes, just trainers hanging out with their Pokemon. It was nice seeing the various Pokemon out and about, and a bit of interesting strategy to help me prepare against their trainers.

I figure now is as good a time as any to talk about Coach Trainers, one of the new mechanics in Let’s Go. See, in every major area with wild Pokemon, there’s special trainers who are extra strong, and give you items if you defeat them. I quite like this addition! They’re kinda like the dark text trainers in Violet, as an extra challenge in areas, and you can get some nice rewards from them.

Making my way down into Fuchisia City, it’s probably the town that got the biggest overhaul in Let’s Go. That was for after I visited the Pokemon Center and healed up my team, though.

The special move tutor was back one final time, and they had one more selection of fascinating moves to show me: Sappy Seed, Freezy Frost, and Sparkly Swirl, based on Leafeon, Glaceon, and Sylveon. I decided to go with Sappy Seed, since the other two types were covered by Ninetales. It’s like Buzzy Buzz and Baddy Bad, but inflicts Leech Seed as its special effect. Pretty handy!

Now that Jackie was fully decked out with special Eevee moves (and Swift), I decided to head to the Safari Zone. I was treated to an absolutely adorable scene of Jackie playing with the various Pokemon there, which was…about the only good thing I can say about the changes made here.

The Safari Zone itself, while I really didn’t like it in Firered, could at least have been made into a Wild Area or something like in Shield, but instead it’s been replaced entirely with the GO Park Complex, which required connectivity with Pokemon GO to function. As someone who doesn’t play Pokemon GO, it didn’t leave me with anything to do here.

This omission made me come to a realization: I hadn’t seen any hint of held items or abilities at all throughout Let’s Go Eevee. I know it’s kinda bad to have them gone, but I feel like it’s a testament to how much I loved this game that I didn’t notice their absence until this far in.

The bad times weren’t stopping, though, as I tried to enter the Fuchisia City gym, only to be stopped by the most ludicrous gym gate yet: I needed to have 50 unique species of Pokemon registered in my pokedex.

Thankfully, due to my earlier decision to try catching ‘em all, I was at about 45 species, but still. Not great.

I headed south to see if I could find some Pokemon down there for my dex, and ran into the Team Rocket trio freaking about some gold teeth, which they then thrust onto me before skedaddling. Bizarre interaction, but it’s always nice to see the Team Rocket trio.

I went back to Fuchisia to explore the rest of the town, and got Jackie two more secret techniques: Strong Push (basically HM Strength) and Sea Skim (basically HM Surf). Now there was no overworld obstacle in Kanto that could stand in Jackie’s way.

I caught a few Pokemon on the coast, and decided to head east, since I hadn’t explored this part of Kanto in this game yet. Maybe I’d catch the rest of the Pokemon I needed here, too.

This area of Kanto would soon become my second least favorite, right after Rock Tunnel.

Its main problem is just how long it goes without any Pokemon Centers or healer NPCs. It’s absolutely packed with strong trainers, so you’ll need to either stock up on potions, or backtrack a lot.

At least I reached 50 Pokemon registered in my Pokedex, but I decided to keep exploring while I was here. Maybe I’d finally find my fast travel?

I battled fishermen and another Snorlax, but no luck. Nobody was giving me the HM Fly equivalent, and I was starting to wonder if there even was one in this game.

I headed back west to Celadon. Intending to check the house of the person who gave me TM Fly again. Maybe she’d give me Jackie the secret technique if I talked to her again?

On my way there, though, I found someone in front of the Celadon Game Corner, next to an odd contraption with balloons. I decided to talk to him, and it turns out, he was the guy who’d give Jackie Sky Dash, my fast travel. Finally, I had all five secret techniques, and could backtrack with ease.

Now that I finally had fast travel, there was somewhere I wanted to see. Somewhere I hadn't been able to find in my playthrough of Firered.

The Abandoned Power Plant.

I had tried to find it back when I played Firered, since it was on the map, but I couldn’t find any other pathways away from the Rock Tunnel entrance…or so I thought. I had completely neglected to consider that the waterway could be a path.

But in Let’s Go Eevee, there was a hint: Lorelei’s little visit in this exact area, riding a Lapras in that waterway.

I wondered: could I go where she went? Did it lead to the fabled Power Plant?

And so, I sky dashed back to Cerulean City, and made my way to the waterway that Lorelei had been at. Sure enough, I could sea skim down the waterway, and at its end, the elusive Power Plant I was so curious about.

It was rather fascinating to explore an entirely new area in Kanto (or at least, new to me), and I took my time combing through every last bit of it. I find it neat how you can tell the Electrodes from the items by if the poke balls are upside-down or not.

And at the end of the Power Plant, I was met with an astounding surprise: One of the legendary birds, Zapdos.

I was stunned. I mean, I knew that this was where Zapdos is, thanks to the manga, but I didn’t think it’d be here already! I thought it was a postgame-exclusive Pokemon!

Since I was already here, I figured, why not try and catch Zapdos?

I was really pleased that they brought back the system from the Snorlax fights, where you battle the wild Pokemon, even if I have mixed feelings on the Match Timer. It was a tricky battle, since I couldn’t use Buzzy Buzz to paralyze Zapdos, given that it’s an electric-type. Instead, I opted to use Sappy Seed. Despite it being not very effective against the flying-type, the constant HP drain from the Leech Seed attribute slowly wore Zapdos down alongside other moves, until its HP was depleted.

Then was the hard part: Actually catching it.

Thankfully, I still had plenty of Ultra Balls, but the only Razz Berries I had were ones that my Pokemon had occasionally found in bushes, so I only had about 20 or so of them.

It took dozens of Ultra Balls, and all but 5 of my Razz Berries, but I managed to catch Zapdos, and I felt amazed.

With that little detour finished, I sky dashed back to Fuchisia, and finally took on its gym.

It’s probably my favorite gym design in all of Kanto, and got such a glowup from Firered. The entire gym is now made of wood, with intricate carvings of poison-type Pokemon in the windows. The gym puzzle itself isn’t blind guessing anymore either, with the fog occasionally showing where the invisible walls are.

Koga himself, though, was a pretty easy foe for Tarlo, and I won my sixth Kanto badge.

With the mainland of Kanto done with for now, I headed south to the Seafoam Islands.

I'm really glad they put a healer NPC outside the Seafoam Islands cave, so I didn't have to sea skim all the way back to a Pokemon Center.

Now that wild Pokemon encounters were more manageable, the Seafoam Islands were much more enjoyable. I get it was kinda my fault back in Firered for refusing to use Repels until Victory Road, but still, the strength (or “strong push” now) puzzles felt less annoying without random encounters every few steps.

This is also where I stumbled upon Articuno by complete accident.

I was just doing strong push puzzles, and I guess I went a bit deeper than the main path? Instead of finding the exit, I found the legendary bird of ice.

Since I had already caught Zapdos, I decided to try and catch Articuno as well.

Due to not being electric-type, Articuno's battle was easier than Zapdos’, since I could use Buzzy Buzz to full effect.

Catching it was just as much an ordeal as Zapdos, if not even moreso due to my dwindling Razz Berry and Ultra Ball supply. I was going to have to restock on those soon.

But eventually, Articuno stayed in the ball. That was two out of the three legendary birds caught.

The question then, was: where is Moltres?

But that was a question for later. For now, I made my way out of the Seafoam Islands, and sea skimmed over to Cinnabar.

I didn't really realize it in Firered, buy Cinnabar Island feels very lonely. There's not a single residential building you can in and talk to the inhabitants of. There's just the gym, the Pokemon Center and Poke Mart, the research lab, and the Pokemon Mansion.

I bought a good 60 or so Ultra Balls, but it seemed like Berries weren’t for sale. So, with the gym locked up tight, I headed into the mansion, where Mewtwo had been created.

The haunting atmosphere of this place both was and wasn't dialed down from Firered. The journal entries are abbreviated, and I do feel like something was lost there. But I feel like what more than makes up for it is the flavor text on the container that had presumably contained Mewtwo: that it showed signs of desperate escape attempts from inside.

With that chilling image fresh in my mind, I grabbed the key, and entered the Cinnabar Gym.

To say it was whiplash from what I had just experienced would be an understatement. I had just delved deep into the shadows of Team Rocket's experiments, and now here I was, stepping up to participate in this amazingly goofy game show.

I adore the gyms in Let's Go. I feel like the latter four are some of the best in the franchise.

I had a lot of fun with this gym, and managed to get all five questions right, netting myself a lovely prize of five Blaine dolls, and a match with the man himself.

He didn't put up too much of a fight, and I got myself my seventh badge. The only one left was the one in Viridian City.

And so, I sea skimmed my way back home to Pallet Town, to make the trip back up Route 1 to my final challenge.

Only…he still wasn’t here yet. Instead, Trace was waiting at the entrance, wondering the same thing I was.

Given the option to ask Jackie who the Viridian gym leader was, I instantly knew what I was picking. Unfortunately, neither of us could understand her telling us that the gym leader is the boss of Team Rocket.

With no other options, we headed back to Professor Oak’s lab, only to find an immense surprise waiting for us there.

Professor Oak was gifting Trace and I Key Stones, to allow us to use Mega Evolution.

I was stunned. I didn’t think mega evolution was in this game! This was so fascinating and exciting to me!

Unfortunately, I had no idea where to find Mega Stones, but it was still really cool!

Exiting the lab, I received some important news: the Viridian gym leader was finally back.

Before I could make my way there, though, Jackie decided to play in the flowers of our hometown a bit. A farewell for now, until the title of Champion was ours.

It was time for my final gym, and I ran back to Viridian, setting foot inside its gym.

Viridian City’s gym was just as fun as its Firered incarnation, with puzzles involving both spin tiles and trainer’s lines of sight. But with all the gym trainers defeated, I made my way to the gym leader’s area. The lights lit up, revealing Giovanni, in front of a map of Kanto.

Our final match was about to begin…at least until Yellow, Ultra Moon, and Soulsilver’s postgame.

He was more powerful than ever, but so was I. Jackie made quick work of most of his ground-types with Sappy Seed, but I had to switch to Tarlo for his Nidos.

With Giovanni defeated for good (for this game), I exited the gym, and met with Blue. Apparently, with how absent Giovanni had been, he’d been considered to be the next one to run the Viridian City gym, and he finally accepted. It was really cool to see this happen, given what I know about his position in the Johto games.

All eight Kanto badges were now mine, and there was only one place left explored for me: The route west of Viridian.

As I walked through it, Trace ran up to me, and challenged me to a battle. Both of us had gotten our full badge collections, and he wanted to test his skills against me.

I won, but he was getting pretty tough. He’d clearly been putting a lot of work into training.

He ran ahead, and I followed behind, arriving at the badge check gates.

I know I already said this in my Firered retrospective, but I still absolutely adore this. It’s so cool having each of your badges individually checked as you progress through this final route. I also got a bit of a chuckle at the mention of Surge’s autograph.

With all eight badge checks complete, though, it was time for me to enter Victory Road.

It was about the same as in Firered, as far as I could tell. Same puzzles, same trainers. However, between playing Firered, and making it this far in Let’s Go Eevee, I had watched adef’s video on if Firered’s Victory Road trainers could actually make it there. It was very fun seeing the trainers again, now that I was more familiar with them. I especially got a kick out of battling Juggler Nelson.

It was here in Victory Road, where I found Moltres. I guess it’s here because of all the torches? Still kinda baffling to me, but eh.

Moltres was by far the easiest of the legendary birds to battle. Two Buzzy Buzzes from Jackie and it was down. It didn’t even get a chance to attack.

Catching it, though, was a much different story. I had found some Golden Razz Berries on the route with the badge checks, but I only had five of them. I had to make them count, and I ended up only using one, and saving the other four for later as I threw Ultra Ball after Ultra Ball.

Eventually I caught Moltres, and with that, all three legendary birds. What an achievement!

With that out of the way, I finished making my way through Victory Road, and entered the Pokemon League building.

It was here where I finally met the Move Relearner, which…what is with Kanto and making the move relearners so late? In Firered, they were in the Sevii Islands, and here, they’re all the way at the Pokemon League. Why?!

Anyways, I healed my team, and proceeded forth into Lorelei’s chamber.

Our battle felt far more impactful than in Firered. She was more than a random stranger, she was someone I knew, and who helped me on my journey. She was also pretty tough, and I was only barely able to keep Jackie from fainting before I defeated her.

Next was Bruno, and I just want to say that I love the little opening cinematics for the Elite Four in this game, with the screen being frozen over for Lorelei, a flurry of punches impacting it for Bruno, and so on. He was also rather tough, and I couldn’t use Jackie at all here against his fighting-types. Instead, Tarlo took the stage, and I moved on to Agatha.

She was laughably easy. None of her ghost-type moves could hit Jackie, while Jackie’s Baddy Bad made quick work of her team. The only problems were her non-ghosts, but Tarlo could still clear them pretty easily.

Last of the Kanto Elite Four was Lance, and I put Ninetales in front for this battle. Dual ice and fairy typing would take care of his team quickly, I thought, until I realized he only had one actual dragon-type. He was a pretty tough foe without the safety of the fairy type on my side, and I had to work for this win.

Only one battle remained: the championship bout.

I took a moment to prepare and heal my team, before I stepped forth to battle against Trace one last time.

He immediately started off with the surprises by mega evolving his Pidgeot. I wasn’t expecting Trace’s Key Stone to actually be used here! But no, he was in this to win.

It was an intense battle, and I wish I could recount it all, but the most standout moments were the Pidgeot to Mega Pidgeot standoff, and Jackie hanging on with 2 HP at a critical moment.

It was such an amazing and cool and awesome battle, and cemented Trace as a top 5 rival for me.

With enough strategy and patience, though, I managed to win, and became champion of Kanto again.

Let’s Go Eevee is an amazing game, in my opinion. It’s the most overlooked of the Switch-era mainline Pokemon titles, and I feel like that’s really unfortunate, because what’s here is really special. I have my gripes with some aspects of it, yes, but I think the positives more than make up for it.

I don’t see Firered giving you the most adorable and fluffy Eevee companion, after all.