#0082: Pokemon Sapphire Version

Have you bought your copy of Omega Ruby or Alpha Sapphire yet? I sure have, and I've been playing that sucker to my heart's content. I can never decide which generation of Pokemon is my favourite, but the third is a strong contender. The locales of Hoenn are vivid and interesting, the story and enemies are probably the series' best, and so many huge mechanics were added that changed the metagame immensely. Now that I have the remake in my possession, I thought I might pass this classic on to a new owner. After all, I also own Ruby as well, and effectively triple dipping on this game felt redundant. Also, kind of delicious when phrased that way.

The moment you fired up Pokemon Sapphire Version, you knew you were living in the new generation. An enormous colour palette! Four Pokemon battling at once! A sombrero-wearing duck creature!! Holy hell, were we truly ready? Early in the game, you see a couple of Machoke moving furniture. This, to me, was simply exhilarating. In previous generations, non-battle sprites were just ambiguous fairies/monsters/flowers/puddles, whereas here, it's as it should be: a scary, artery-brandishing behemoth. You approach it meekly, staring at it in awe. 'Guaaaffaaaahhh!' it roars at you. Possibly because you stepped on its foot.

Soon, you meet your new neighbour and rival. if you chose the male character, your neighbour will be the girl, May. I like to call her Haruka, because that's her Japanese name and I think it suits her. If you chose the female protagonist, you'll get the boy, Brendan, next door. I like to call him Douche, because he's an absolute douche.

As the story progresses, you'll do battle with the nefarious Team Aqua, who plan to cover the planet in water. Consequently, on the sister game, your adversaries come in the form of Team Magma, who, as you could appreciate, intend to do the opposite. The other team will act as foils to these dastardly plans, though frankly, I always thought the Magmas had the more wicked intentions. I mean, seriously - Team Aqua floods the world, okay, we take a leaf from Kevin Costner's book, and become a society of pirates. Team Magma turns the whole world to arid, dry land? Fuck that shit. I've been living in the desert for seventeen years, and it's shithouse. You think you can handle it, you try spending one Christmas in the summer. You'll forsake Christianity real fast. And I still haven't seen a single Regirock out here.

Anyway, in memorium of... wait, memorium isn't a word? That's really awkward. It's like the time I pronounced the word vehemently as it's spelt. Well, whatever. In memory of Pokemon Sapphire, I thought I would share with you an excellent poem I have formulated (just now) on my favourite Pokemon from this generation.

A-hem.

His crest is red

His body blue

Should he strike

You'll have nothing to do

But fear not, old salt

For his name is Swellow

He shan't attack you

He's a friendly fellow

He flies with great speed

And exquisite grace

His talons are sharp

I like his face

He wins in battles

He wins at life

He won many contests

That won him a wife

Special attack is abysmal

Defenceless is he

Not a physical threat

And sub-par HP

But oh, is he fast

Just watch him go

He makes the swiftest

Appear sluggishly slow

Zip, zip, zip!

So agile and clever

He's an Aerial Ace

Who shall always Endeavour

So come watch the show

Fill the whole auditorium

We honour you, Swellow

At least in memorium

...The FUCK, Internet?!

#0068: Pokemon Silver Version

In April of 2011, I decided to do an odd thing. I scavenged about the closet, unearthed my Game Boy Advance, and popped in my old Pokemon games. Did I intend to play them, seeking a surge of nostalgia? No, not exactly. After all, the first two generations have since been faithfully recreated, and I'm actually still in the middle of my Heart Gold run-through. In actuality, I kind of wanted to look through my legions of old Pokemon, just for shits and giggles.

I'd sunk about 200 hours into Pokemon Silver Version, and boy, what a time I'd had. Back in the days when Pokemon was still the exciting thing, the second edition certainly delivered on all fronts: new Pokemon, new abilities, the revelation that your darling little princess Clefable may actually have a wang... It was all terribly exciting, wasn't it?

And so, I fondly surveyed the contents of my PC boxes. My Typhlosion, the starter Pokemon who would join me as I trekked through this uncharted new region... Reddy, the cleverly named shiny crimson Gyarados... and of course, my Quagsire was in there somewhere. I adored that Quagsire. She was dopey as fuck, with this great big grin on her face; a veritable Brad Garrett of Pokemon.

But where in the hell was she? She wasn't among my party. She wasn't sitting in the Water or Ground-type boxes. She wasn't even on a vacation over on my Crystal version. She was nowhere. ...My Quagsire... was dead. In my misery, I wrote her a touching eulogy.

Pokemon Silver claimed my Quagsire far before her time. She was going to be celebrating her eleventh birthday this year. She was so beautiful. She loved to Rollout. So young, so innocent.

In memory of Nautica the Quagsire
2000-2011

Fast forward to today, and I thought I'd pay the Johto region another visit. But it would seem as though the cruel hand of fate has plagued this once pristine part of the world, and claimed another victim. And this time, that victim was the Johto champion, ANTHONY, trainer #15939.

Yes, it would seem as though the entire save file has disappeared, and with it, the Typhlosion, the Umbreon, the Crobat... Every last one, gone. Professor Oak approaches, but he's practically unrecognisable. He once lived an existence of great joy and unbridled passion, reviewing the progress ANTHONY had made on his Pokedex. But now, he is a shadow of his former self. He asks you for your name. He mutters something about the world of Pokemon. He hands you the ghastly corpse of a Chikorita. Then he shuffles off into the dark recesses of his dilapidated laboratory.

The world that once looked so vivid seems to only contain 56 colours, all of them melancholy. New Bark Town has only a few scattered inhabitants, who are all wandering back and forth aimlessly, their eyes glassy and pixelated. Strangely, though, people seem to be going about their day in much the same way they had back at the turn of the millennium.

They tell you about recently discovered Pokemon like Marill and Natu. They talk about the exciting new technology of the Poke Gear. They're listening to Sisqó as if he were relevant. However, mentioning the name ANTHONY only receives confusion and indifference. Why, it's as if you've jumped back in time to a perverse version of the past, one where ANTHONY never received that Cyndaquil, never bested Lance at the Pokemon League, and never prevented the uprising of Team Rocket.

He's been erased from the memory of everyone in the world! ...Which is odd, considering that he's also the champion of Kanto, Hoenn and Unova. He would have been the Sinnoh region champion as well, but I decided to name him MR. BUTTS instead. Hahaha! Butts.

I shan't dally for long. Clearly, my very presence here, with my fancy new iPod and Terrence Ross Raptors jersey, is causing suspicion. I'm a practical paradox, and my Game Boy Advance isn't backlit, so I can't make out a damn thing anyway. Tears in my eyes, I take out my Poke Ball, and release my Swellow, ready for it to fly me away from this horrible place.

Unfortunately, Swellow doesn't exist yet. The save file is now corrupted, and New Bark Town is renamed HW!%RRR!PWWW. Fuck.

I hope you're out there somewhere, ANTHONY. Still farming those Charmanders. Still giving those Pokemon the horrible movesets you thought were so tactful as a twelve year old. Still nicknaming Hoothoot as Lugia, and trading it to unsuspecting children. You old dick, you.

More swag!

Here are some other things I've gotten rid of lately. Things that are relevant to this blog, but not important enough to merit their own entries. Though you could argue that things like my sticker book didn't deserve their own entry, either. In which case, touché.

Old console/controller boxes! These things have been in the garage since before you were born. The spider inside the Genesis box was enormous and terrifying. If this was a 90s commercial, it would have yelled 'SEGA' at me.

This excellent poster details the hot new games you can get for your Game Boy. That Donkey Kong Land III looks pretty revolutionary, doesn't it? It kind of looks like James Bond is in Cerulean City.

A breakfast cereal collectible card from Babe 2: Pig in the City. I don't know in what sense it is collectible, but dear golly, my collection of one certainly included Thelonius.

One of these books supposedly contained 1001 cool jokes, but I'm not quite positive as to what qualified these jokes as being 'cool'. I certainly didn't feel cooler for owning it. The other book was my secret spy book. And clearly now, the secret is out.

This magical Sylvester head holds stunning secrets. You can keep candy in there! I mean, I'm sure there are other things you can put in there, too...

"No! Just candy, Ned! Ninety dollars!!"

Your First Pokémon

It's Valentine's Day today, and more importantly, the birthday of the late, great Steve McNair, and as such, today is too important to merely dismiss with little more than a eulogy for a typewriter.

So, today, we shall reminisce about one of our first true loves. ...Do you remember your first Pokémon?


Bulbasaur was my first Pokémon. It did not get past the first day, unfortunately. I was trying to formulate a clever nickname for it, and clumsily typed in Bulba(PKMN) by accident. Somehow, my thumb then landed upon the start button, and though by all accounts it sounds almost purposeful, I really did not intend to have a Bulbasaur named Bulba(PKMN).

...So I restarted my game. Bulba(PKMN) was no more.

The second Bulbasaur, who I wisely decided to leave unnamed, fared much better. It schooled Gary's Charmander with ease, not even needing assistance from the Potion that I apparently kept in my computer.

And so, me and my Bulbasaur travelled the land. All the while, we seeked other mighty Pokémon to join our six-man posse. And of course, this was back before we all knew about which Pokémon were good, and which were crappy. Toting a Rattata, Pidgey and Caterpie, I was most definitely not an impressive sight to see. I was one of the sad, pitiful fools who learnt the hard way that a wild Metapod knows only how to Harden. What a god-forsaken battle that was, I can scarcely remember who won (oh yeah, not me).

Later, I finally saw fit to name my newly-evolved Venusaur. As the harbinger of all things mighty and grassy, I dubbed that warty mofo Leaves.


Having somehow managed to defeat all eight Gym Leaders, Leaves and I had finally hit the plateau. Quite literally. For we were at the Indigo Plateau. Though not entirely literally, because then we would have actually physically hit the plateau, and that would surely have been pointless.

Armed with a tactfully woeful and simply foolish team, Leaves and I would tackle the Elite Four. Articuno and Zapdos were crucial that day. Leaves held its own in the fray. Vulpix did absolutely nothing, but it looked very pretty. Historic records are hard to find of those epic battles, because a fateful encounter with a MISSINGNO. led to a virus in the Pokémon League computer. Or maybe it was hacked. I can't be sure.

The point is, I would become champion. And, like any great champion, my reign would be surrounded with a great deal of controversy. I burst into the delicate ecosystem of the Cerulean Cave, and killed various rare fauna before snaring the mutated lab creation Mewtwo within the experimental Master Ball.

I had previously considered catching a Weedle in this ball, but cooler heads prevailed. To the victor go the spoils!

But I wanted more. I wanted to be the most powerful trainer in the land, but I didn't want to work for it. I would seek out that same MISSINGNO. and, through some sort of wicked magic I can't decipher, battling it multiplied the seventh item I had been carrying by the hundreds. It took two attempts to get this right, because the first time I had a bicycle there. It was a really awkward moment when hundreds of bicycles shot from out of my pants. Good thing Cinnabar Island only has a population of about eight, otherwise people might have started asking questions.

So now, I had a jackpot of Rare Candies. Their properties caused Pokémon growth to accelerate, and as their name implied, they were harder to find than the McDonald's Lowly Worm. However, I had outsmarted the system. In my possession, they were practically Common Candy. I force-fed Leaves the lollies by the shovel-load, and now, the Level 100 Venusaur was the pride of Canada, worthy of joining the greats.


The next few years would pass without incident, until I made a visit to Goldenrod City in Johto. I left Leaves at the daycare like a responsible parent while I played the slots at the Game Corner, and when I returned, I made a shocking discovery.

Leaves was a broad. And she had been knocked up by an Ampharos.

I of course sued the daycare for negligence, and after months that seemed like merely 5355 steps, Leaves had given birth to two sons; Leaves II and Shrubs. At least something good came out of such a dark encounter. To this day, however, I've never trusted a sheep, for fear that it'll sprout a ruby orb from its tail, shed its fur, and make love to my plants. Note, I said PLANTS. With an 'L'.

Leaves has since retired, and recently celebrated her thirteenth birthday. She watches as these fancy new creatures come and go, and as each bright-eyed trainer receives their very own first Pokémon from a professor named after a tree. These are the golden years, she thinks, and she wouldn't have it any other way.

Every now and then, she gathers with her old friends, and reminisces over the good old days, and their glorious reign as supplement-taking behemoths. The Ninetales, formerly the dainty Vulpix, still a looker at this ripe old age. The Dragonite, who destroyed all in his path, and has the history of arrests to prove it. All except the Alakazam, who was a know-it-all and a prick. Plus, Leaves could hardly ever understand a word he said.


...Do you remember your first Pokémon?