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Post by Juxapose on Apr 13, 2013 8:04:32 GMT -5
I now have Pokemon Diamond Version, and I will embark on my own Pokemon journey in this version for the first time. I already played about 10 minutes and got the Pokedex from Professor Rowan. Time after time, I'll be posting my personal experience with this game, and how it compares to the previous three generations of Pokemon.
My first Experience is just like any other adventure. Make a character, meet the friend/rival, grab a Pokemon (My starter is Turtwig), and I start battling Pokemon just like any other version.
I met a few new Pokemon, although I am already familiar with them from my research. Don't know if I like them or not, but stay tuned!
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Post by Butterscotch on Apr 13, 2013 8:53:48 GMT -5
I hope ypu have fun! I personally quite enjoyed Diamond
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Post by Juxapose on Apr 13, 2013 19:56:42 GMT -5
Okay, I have just spent the WHOLE day from the moment I woke up to now playing Pokemon Diamond Version.
My current Pokemon are:
Luxio level 18 (Nanaki) Grotle Level 18 (Kappa) Kadabra level 17 (Spoony) Geodude Level 17 (Rocky) Shellos Level 18 (Sluguthu)
I only have 1 badge.
My personal Experience:
I must say that compared to the other past generations, I am quite impressed. Not exactly what I was looking for, but I am enjoying the game. What I really like so far is the selection of Pokemon. Unlike the atrocious selection of Gen 3, Gen 4 has a huge mix of Gel 1 and Gen 3 along with Gen 4 Pokemon. I haven't found any Gen 2 Pokemon yet, but I guess that trading between HG/SS is supposed to remedy that. Bringing together such a familiar mix of old and new Pokemon makes the game feel harmonious. Kinda the same feeling of Generation 2. Unlike Gen 3 and their awkward mix of Pokemon types, Generation 4 made things simpler. Familiar types, and familiar combat strategies. I have noticed a poor selection of fire types, but I haven't found myself desperately needing one.
What Generation three did wrong is to introduce too many new Pokemon, and almost no familiar ones. I felt like that Gamefreak was taking away something precious, and replacing everything with terrible versions of our old friends. Generation four did feel like that at first; but once familiar faces joined the crew, things felt so much better.
As the game progresses, I have found lots of fun features along with familiar ones. I love that part of the game where you travel through a forest with a partner. All the battles, wild or trainer, are all doubles, and you get healed after every battle. So unexpected, and such a breath of fresh air.
The game does come with a few problems. I still miss the PokeGear, why didn't they re-implement this? (The poketch is okay, but some apps are just pointless. Why add a calculator to Pokemon?) I really don't like the stupid Pokemon dress-up mini game thing. And I couldn't stand the TV interview thing from Gen 3, why is it here in Gen 4? I admit that my issues with the game are minor.
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Post by Butterscotch on Apr 13, 2013 22:29:06 GMT -5
I'm glad you're enjoying it ;D
I think the calculator is used in some way...it's been too long.
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Post by Juxapose on Apr 14, 2013 19:30:50 GMT -5
Second day playing Pokemon Diamond version.
I have finally picked up a Fire Pokemon.
Ponyta Level 20 (Amalthea)
This Pokemon is pretty tough to train, but at least it's up to speed with the rest of the group. Until level 16, it learned no fire moves, and I had to use EXP SHARE to give it some levels before it is able to combat trainers. I also picked up a VS FINDER, hopefully I can use it to gain some needed levels.
I must admit that this game is quite challenging. Not hard, but it does keep me on my toes. The Gym battles kept me on the edge of my seat. The Gym leaders are either as high or higher level than I am. I still manage to complete them without whiting out yet, but I know that from this point on, things are gonna get interesting.
As I fight Team Galactica, I just lulz at how lame the Pokemon they use. I mean, why are the criminal organizations always packing their grunts with some of the weakest Pokemon in the game. I mean the grunts of this game are still carrying Zubats. Even common trainers in the field are more challenging than they are. The leaders of Team Galactica are a bit more challenging with their beefed up Pokemon though.
I did encounter the little side quest where you go underground and dig for items. I did like that, but unless I know what are the rewards, I am not sure if I can invest the time or energy into it.
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Post by Juxapose on Apr 15, 2013 19:53:43 GMT -5
Day Number three.
I have encountered some of the new features of this game. Nothing special, but interesting still.
I am starting to encounter more Generation 2 Pokemon. Now I am completely satisfied at the great mix of four generations of Pokemon living together in Harmony. But I do find myself overwhelmed with Pokemon. I haven't even gotten a third badge yet, and I am encountering more and more Pokemon. Makes me fear the future of this game after seeing such a massive collection of Pokemon to use and battle against.
In the area where I am saved, I noticed that Baby Pokemon are starting to be used quite commonly. A lot of people are using Cleffa, Mime jr, the baby sudowoodoo thing, and Pichu. I keep hearing about happiny, but I have not encountered it yet. I do have an egg that for some reason won't hatch.
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Post by TBustah! on Apr 16, 2013 4:56:22 GMT -5
That's cool.
I eventually want to start over on Pearl. I need to dump it's contents into Black anyway (just waiting to get my hands on a second DS), and I'm hoping that a restart will solve the save corruption problem it's been having.
I really wish I didn't lose my original copy. I was lucky enough to get one of the ones that didn't corrupt at the drop of a hat.
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Post by Juxapose on Apr 16, 2013 21:00:42 GMT -5
Day number four
Didn't do too much Pokemon today. I wasn't feeling all too well, and I slept most of the day. All I can say is that I am still encountering more and more Pokemon. This Sinnoh world is GINORMOUS. I still can't believe how much this world has grown since the early generations of Pokemon. I am completely lost in this world, and I don't have much time to fully explore this whole new world. If I was a kid who didn't have responsibilities, then things would be better.
My Geodude is now evolved into Graveler. And all my Pokemon are in the level 25-26 range.
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Post by Juxapose on Apr 17, 2013 19:41:11 GMT -5
Today I revised my team. I removed two Pokemon out of my roster. My Grotle and my Graveler both are no longer in my party. These two are no longer needed in my Pokemon adventure. I only hope that I can find some proper replacements in the near future. I want to have a steel, poison, dark, or fighting in the roster to complete the mix. I also have some new moves for the existing pokemon.
Now at this point, I sort of wish my starter was the fire monkey pokemon. That would at least fix the fighting problem I have, but I might then have to remove Ponyta. Ponyta is not a bad Pokemon, but it's fairly weak cause it knows no physical fire moves.
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Post by Juxapose on Apr 18, 2013 21:31:37 GMT -5
Today I didn't play much of the game, but I spent about four hours in the Game Corner trying to get Coins for the TM's. Like always, Grinding away for coins so that I can solidify my roster's move set to prepare for the next gym battle.
Today I want to talk about the fire type Pokemon of all four generations. Of all the fire type Pokemon, only 1 Pokemon out performs the rest. And that is Arcanine. It's a shame that all the other fire type Pokemon can't compete with this one. I have not played Generation 5, so don't correct me in that respect. Also I am not counting any legendaries, so Entei, Moltres, Heatran don't count.
The reason I chose Arcanine is the following:
Arcanine has the best balance of stats of all the fire based Pokemon up to gen 4. Arcanine is able to learn a great variety of moves. Arcanine has few weaknesses as opposed to dual types such as Magcargo and Charizard. In Gen 4, Arcanine only gets stronger as they separate Phys and Special skills.
The only runner up is Typhlosion from Gen 2. Typhlosion has great stats and has few weaknesses like Arcanine. But Typhlosion move set is not that impressive when compared to Arcanine.
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Post by Juxapose on Apr 19, 2013 20:04:16 GMT -5
OMG, I am so frustrated. For a reason I cannot understand, a Noctowl is completely uncatchble.
I have spent literally the last 2 hours chucking safari balls at a Noctowl, and it will not stay in the ball. Assuming I can toss an average of 5 balls a minute times that by 120 minutes, I have tossed about 600 safari balls at that thing! I mean come on! Legendary Pokemon are not that hard to catch. And I just realized that I could have spent the two hours leveling up the Hoothoot I already had into a Noctowl, and been done MUCH sooner. Seriously, WTF is the point of making Noctowl so hard to catch?
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Post by Juxapose on Apr 21, 2013 17:01:16 GMT -5
I forgot to post something about yesterday's experience. Since I will not be playing because of business I must tend to, I will post my experience today.
First thing's first. I want to talk a little about the second addition to most people's roster, water Pokemon. As I researched, I found that there is a heck ton of water Pokemon. Many of them have a variety of move sets, secondary types, main stat, strategy, and weaknesses. To be honest, unlike fire where I can pin point a champ in the bunch, water is not the same. Since no Pokemon stands out, I cannot pick a raining champ. All water type Pokemon are different, and most of them are not that good to use. Those that are have an obvious weakness to them. And since there is no champ, I believe that everyone should just do their own homework, and pick one that can compliment their team.
But of the group, I would like to highlight some of my favorite water types:
Lapras
Lapras has amazing stats, and can use a great mix of skills. It has great health, can deal it's share of damage, and it's half ice, so it can use skills like ice beam and blizzard effectively
Lapras main weaknesses is the number of types it is weak against. Lapras has water weaknesses like Electric and Grass, plus the typical ice weaknesses of fighting and rock.
To counter it's weaknesses, I recommend working on getting a speed built Lapras, and KOing the opposing Pokemon before it has the chance to counter attack.
Quagsire & Gastrodon (Plus any other ground/water mix)
Ground and water always gets my vote. Cancelling out water's main weakness Electric is a plus. Plus using ground type moves is awesome. I love taunting my foes who love electric Pokemon by countering a tempting water type who can pwn their electric Pokemon.
Like all good water Pokemon, these also have an obvious weakness. Water/Ground mix are usually very slow. Whiscash is faster than Quagsire and Gastrodon, but still relatively slow compared to other speed built Pokemon. These Pokemon also have a 4x weakness to grass. Any grass move will knock them out instantly without effort. Their slow nature and massive weakness makes them easy to rid if your opponent have the right set of Pokemon.
Floatzel
Floatzel is a speed powerhouse of a Pokemon. This is one of the fastest non-legendary water Pokemon available. It has decent attack/special attack stats which makes it a tank to KO Pokemon before they have a chance to know what hit them.
Floatzel is a good Pokemon to KO rock/ground/fire Pokemon, but not much else. It doesn't learn a great range of moves, and the only good moves it can learn via TM is ice moves and Focus Blast. But as a single type, other moves outside of water don't do the damage.
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Post by Juxapose on Apr 21, 2013 17:33:59 GMT -5
Now that we got the obligatory homework posted, time to get writing about the game's experience.
When I first booted up the game, I was having a bit of fun with it. Things were new, and the new combat system was very interesting. The game was mildly challenging, but that's because I haven't perfected my team, and I was learning the ropes.
I now have 6 badges, and I am past the mid point of the game. Sadly, I must admit that I am beginning to become bored with the game. Now that I have a basic understanding of the new content, and I am past the great mix of old and new Pokemon, things got old very quickly. Once again, it got to the basic element of every Pokemon version up to this. Encounter trainer, save, see what Pokemon they drop first, reload, move proper Pokemon to start, own trainer. Over and over again, I spent hours just dominating effortlessly. The gym leaders are now just wastes of time as opposed to a challenging feat they promised. The crime syndicate is even more pathetic than team rocket. My rival just makes me shake my head in shame. And the odd story about the creation of Sinnoh and the universe makes me want to gag. The three "legendary" Pokemon are weak and don't deserve the title of legendary (Uxie, Mesprit, Azelf). Yeah, they have fine stats, but they got owned so easily by a group of star wars fans who gets owned by a teenage Pokemon trainer. Things just get a bit sloppy over time.
Even though I say it's boring, don't get me wrong at all. The only reason it's boring because I have done the whole Pokemon Trainer thing over and over and over. If I was new to the Pokemon Universe, this game would be fantastic. But I already did this whole badge collecting, own the crime syndicate, collect them all, copy and paste storyline already. I have defeated the elite four in the following games:
Pokemon Red Version Pokemon Blue Version Pokemon Yellow Version Pokemon Silver Version Pokemon Gold Version Pokemon Ruby Version Pokemon Fire Red Version Pokemon Stadium Pokemon Stadium 2
It's just not that exciting to rehash the same exact story over and over again. Especially when Silver/Gold promised that we will start evolving our characters past the level of masters, and become Gym Leaders and Elite Fours. You know, move up like the main story of Red/Blue. Red and Blue both passed the Gym Leader test, but Red is so injured that he cannot assume the Gym in Veridian City, so Blue took his place instead. Red then trained in Mt Silver until another trainer can defeat him.
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Post by Mage the Observer on Apr 21, 2013 18:07:52 GMT -5
It's what I liked about Pokemon Colosseum. Completely different dynamic in storyline. Add in a game mechanic that actually required some strategy, and hey! You had something!
Mirror B. and his dancing Ludicolo didn't hurt either.
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Post by Juxapose on Apr 23, 2013 16:54:08 GMT -5
I just caught Dialga. The game makes it so easy to do. I was handed a master ball just before I encountered Dialga. Can't get any easier than that. Even though I have a Dialga, I don't plan to use it. It has some cheap moves, and the game is easy enough without a legendary in my group. As of now, I have these pokemon in my roster:
Rapidash (Amalthea) Gastrodon (Sluguthu) Kadabra (Spoony) Luxray (Nanaki) Drapion (Xorn)
I still haven't decided on my final pokemon to make the complete six. Dragon Fighting or Steel would complete the party.
*Edit*
BTW, My Sluguthu totally owned Dialga.
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