Pokemon!

I am a 20 year old man. I pride myself as being reasonably mature and controlled.

I fucking love Pokemon.

Now, given the other content of this blog, that really shouldn't come as much of a surprise. And I'm not one of those pokemon nuts who breeds compulsively and debates all the best strategies. I just enjoy beating shit up with my little murderbeasts.

I am disappointed with myself that I didn't buy Heart Gold before I left for Japan. I've got such a fucking awesome team in my Pearl version, I wouldn't dream of resetting, but I'd love to actually play through the games again.

When I first started up with this playthrough of Pearl (and Jesus Fucking Christ, I have like 95 hours on this one game! I grind like a motherfucker.), my roommate, who's far deeper into the actual battling and strategy aspects of Pokemon than I am, gave me a few eggs- a Sneasel, Bagon, Houndour, and Murkrow. So, in addition to my rockin' Piplup, I had some very powerful pokemon with very powerful movesets (well, except Murkrow) early on. I added to that a Crobat (first time I've raised a Crobat, he's pretty awesome), Roserade, Misimagius, Luxray, Machamp, and my roommate proceeded to trade me a Nidoking and a Skuntank just because I wanted them. I was going for something of a Dark/Poison theme- Houndoom, Weaville, Honchkrow, Roserade, Nidoking, Crobat, and Skuntank are all either one or the other. And every single one of the above creatures is awesome.

I took on the Elite 4 for the second time today. I raise so many damn Pokemon, it was with almost an entirely different team my first time around. Actually, there's an interesting story to that. The first time I went to face the Elite 4 was way back in the summer. Now, between the 8th gym and the Elite 4, there's a bit of a gap, so significant grinding is something of a good idea, or else you'll get completely destroyed. When I first got to this point, I was on vacation up in Cape Cod with my family. Most of my pokemon were mid-40's, and I needed to have them at least at level 50 if I wanted to stand a chance. So, the grind commenced. I got a lot done on our way home in the back, as we were in hella traffic (everyone else was pretty miserable) before eventually deciding to pick a good team of 6. Just because I was getting bored as shit. So I saved and started the fight with Empoleon, Misimagius, Roserade, Machamp, Sneasel (he wasn't a Weaville yet) and Salamence. That was about when the power light on my DS switched to red.

I don't remember too much of the individual battles- Salamence was sweeping through the Bug dude's team before Drapion Ice-Fang'd him into oblivion, and his Heracross was giving me some trouble before I realized that Empoleon's Drill Peck hits him for 4x weakness. The ground lady is ridiculously easy with Roserade. When we got to the Fire dude and his Infernape, I was a little worried because Empoleon's Steel, and any Fighting moves he brings out will destroy me (there was a realization that Heracross could do that as well.) And I've always hated that freaking flaming monkey for some reason. He offends me. So when Empoleon's Surf one-shotted something about 10 levels higher, I immediately threw my fist in the air. In our car, this meant I punched the cieling and totally freaked out everyone else in the car, since I'd been pretty quiet. I don't remember a thing about the psychic dude, but with Sneasel, Empoleon, and Misimagius, I'm sure it was pretty easy.

Now, on to Cynthia, the champ. She's got some ridiculous mons, including a hilariously broken Garchomp. I remember having a fairly hard battle against her, but not the specifics. However, just as my victory was assured....my DS gave up the ghost and ran out of juice. I had realized this was a possibility so my reaction was more laughter than frustration, but still. I then went back and kicked the 4's ass legitimately.

Man of the match both times went to Empoleon, who is just such a fucking awesome tank. He does not give a shit what you throw at him, and hits everything hard with Surf. I love defensive steel-types. I could use him against pretty much anything and he'd chew it up and spit it out.

After that, I didn't play very much, but last semester a friend traded me for an Eevee, Cyndaquil, and Charmander. That Eevee would become an Umbreon, and I'd have three of my all-time favorite Pokemon. I also got an Eevee in-game and got a Glaceon out of that. All 4 are destined to join the main rotation.

Now, this time around, I took some weaker mons- Empoleon for insurance, and Roserade, Honchkrow, Houndoom, Crobat and Nidoking. Well, Nidoking was higher-level, but he's awesome anyways.

This team was a bit less cohesive than my previous one, but it had some useful tricks. Honchkrow's awesome with Roost and Drill Peck. Man of the match this time went to Houndoom. He was able to get Nasty Plot off several times and just eat through half the stuff thrown at him, including that fucking Garchomp (admittedly, I got lucky when Dragon Rush missed twice). All in all, a ton of fun.