Interesting tidbit: While typing the two sentences above, I missed typing nearly half of the o’s. Weird.
Sometimes we might fall
I’d stare a lifetime into your eyes
So the other day I went out on my lunch break and bought a bucket of peach rings candy from Wal-Mart. It’s not that I really love peach rings that much or anything, I just needed some candy, and that seemed the most appealing at the time. Also it was like two bucks, so how could I refuse? I ate a few, went back to work, and left them sitting in the car.
Now, this summer’s been pretty crappy, and most of our days have been cold, rainy, windy, or any combination of those three. So of course when I got home and settled into my room and I realized I’d left the peach rings in the car, I wasn’t worried. I’d just take them in tomorrow after work. Of course, I forgot they were there in the morning, and they sat in the backseat all day long. And that was the day the sun came out to shine.
I suppose I should also mention that I’m going to Canmore again for the next week, so no blogging until Saturday at the earliest. Not that I’ve been keeping up very well over the last couple weeks though… Whatever.
Super Mario Galaxy 2 Loves Bein’ Green
About two and a half years ago, a wonderous little thing called Super Mario Galaxy happened. It was magical, and I hastily labeled it my very favourite Wii game. That title had not fallen, even though I’ve finished the game but once, until now. Super Mario Galaxy 2 is quite possibly the most direct sequel that Nintendo has ever made. It’s the exact same game, just crammed with boatloads of new ideas. All the fat has been trimmed, leaving a very polished, very intense gaming experience behind.
But maybe there’s something you didn’t know about Mario Galaxy 2. It’s got a thing about colours. To this you might say “Oh of course, Ryan. Both Mario Galaxy games have very vibrant and extensive colour palettes. They are indeed quite colourful!” But I’m not talking about the graphics, or the art style. What I’ve noticed, is that many of the outstanding elements in the game are all tied around a single colour, and it’s ain’t Mario Cap Red. Nope, the little bro gets his dues here because this game is all about green.
That’s right. It’s called Super Mario Galaxy, but the recurring theme of green in the game is undeniable and screams Luigi. And there’s no better way to present this theory than with the element of gameplay that Nintendo is pushing more than anything: Yoshi.
Now me and Yoshi have had a very turbulent relationship. In the beginning, things were peachy. He first showed up in Super Mario World, where not only was he just slightly less useful than the cape power-up, but he would also selflessly hurtle himself into the void in hopes of giving Mario a big enough boost to make that jump that was just a little too long. Now that’s friendship! Back then, getting Yoshi was something to be very happy about. There was absolutely no reason not to saddle up the dino. He was great. His starring role in Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island brought us even closer, as that is undoubtedly one of the best platform games ever crafted.
Things took a turn for the worse when Yoshi’s Story came out though. It wasn’t a terrible game, but it suffered from a few odd design choices, like the game being six levels long, even though it contained 24 in total. And the baby Yoshi voice. It could have been a one-time annoyance, but no. Nintendo somehow decided to make the grating Baby Yoshi voice the de facto standard for any time noise might slip out of a Yoshi. Maybe it was to annoy people out of buying their games, maybe it was because they wanted people to hate Yoshi. I don’t know why, but it happened.
Add in the fact here that in the Super Smash Bros. series, Yoshi is nigh unplayable, and you’ve got yourself a real stinker of a character. Super Mario Sunshine seemed poised to make Yoshi a desirable companion, but in the end, it just got worse. As you played through that game, you quickly learned that anytime you saw a Yoshi egg, it was pretty much guaranteed that you were about to be forced through an either extremely annoying or difficult (often both!) challenge. Not to mention that it was an unnecessary hassle to find Yoshi a particular kind of fruit for each challenge, and there would usually be only one on the level and it would be quite far from your goal.
Super Mario Galaxy has turned it all around though. Yoshi is back, and while his voice is still a pain in the ears, he has definitely earned back his place as a worthy sidekick. Not only is Mario once again able to jettison Yoshi to his doom to save himself from a deadly fall, but unlike Sunshine, finding a Yoshi egg inspires hope, because levels with Yoshi in them are fun here. For example, there is a flower that Yoshi can grapple with his tongue and use to swing back and forth like some sort of bionic commando, and just flipping around on these flowers is worth hours of fun! Yoshi’s flutter jump will also save your ass countless times as you work your way through Galaxy 2, and every single time he shows up, you will be grateful.
As an aside, Yoshi has fruit-activated abilities again. Besides the mostly uninteresting Bulb Berry, they seem to be based on Sunshine’s FLUDD backpack. The Dash Pepper, for instance, will make Yoshi run at a high velocity, allowing him to run up walls and, more notably, dash across the surface of water. Sound familiar? And the Blimp Fruit is used to propel the duo into the air, allowing them to reach great hights or hover around for a while. Again, I’m feeling a little deja vu. Whether this was on purpose or a very sly nod to Sunshine, I don’t know, but I think it’s neat either way.
To continue with my green theory, we’ll also have a look at one-up mushrooms. They are an iconic Mario item, and they are not at all lacking in Super Mario Galaxy 2. In fact, there may be too many. The first Galaxy easily provided more than enough lives to get by, but Galaxy 2 takes it to the extreme. Not only are the bright green ‘shrooms just laying around everywhere, but there are countless opportunities to earn more.
In nearly every galaxy, there is a teleport pad that will take Mario to a small arena, where if he is able to defeat a handful of enemies quickly, he is rewarded with not one, but three 1-up mushrooms. On Starship Mario there is a die you can hit that will either release a 1-up or a star bit, and later on you can enter a pipe on the ship that allows you to buy five more die that can yield up to five 1-up mushrooms each. That’s a possible twenty-five lives. It’s not likely that you’ll get the yahtzee, but the possibility is there.
Last but not least (probably not even last, I just can’t think of any more examples) just like in the first Galaxy, every time you boot up the game, there is a mailtoad who will give you five free one-ups. Excessive? Yes. In a prolonged play session, it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary to reach the 50-life mark. In my longest session, I far surpassed the 99-life cap. Of course, there are some hidden terms here, the most notable being that every time you turn the game off, your stock of extra lives goes back to a measly four. And also, once you get to the latter parts of the game, you’ll probably need all of those lives. Why? The green stars are a pretty good reason.
And what exactly do I mean by green stars? Firstly, I’ll ask you to stop reading if you haven’t finished the game and don’t want to be spoiled. Now that I’ve warned you, I’ll tell you this: the green stars are both a blessing and a curse. Once you’ve acquired all 120 gold/yellow stars and trounced Bowser, the game will unleash another 120 stars into the galaxies. They are green, and they will give you headaches.
The bad news is that these headaches will likely come from annoyance and monotony. The green stars are not 120 new challenges, but rather they are simply placed into the galaxies you’ve already cleaned out. Just hanging out there. It turns the back half of the game into something that comes eerily close to a collectathon. However! There is a better side to this.
Obviously, you want to play these levels again. Or at least most of them. The game is so big and full of great ideas that it’s still fun to just run around like an idiot in the many galaxies searching for the green stars. And while a few are a bit uninspired, the worst of them being situated right beside a regular star, the majority of them require some serious skills. Or at least serious accuracy. At least half of the green stars that I’ve collected to this point (currently counting a measly 31) have been floating out in the middle of nowhere, meaning that you’re making a big jump, and if you miss, you die.
Until I embarked on the hunt for green stars, I had no idea why Nintendo had created so gosh darn many opportunities to reap massive amounts of extra lives. The answer being that most of those green stars are literally death traps, and they demand that you be perfect. They are brutal, and if you have any trouble getting through the front half of the game, you’d best be prepared to either step it up a notch or just give up while you’re ahead. Did I mention that most of them are just a little bit farther than Mario can jump comfortably? Yeah, that makes the need for precision even more dire. Well, precision or someone who can jump higher and farther.
And that’s when we come back around to the man in green himself: Luigi. Luigi initially appears fairly early in the game, urging Mario to let him help collect some of the many power stars. And from that point, Luigi will appear at the beginning of certain missions, asking you to let him take over for a while. Using Luigi for that particular star will usually unlock a Luigi ghost, who will in turn lead you to a hidden star on your next run through that stage. It’s not the most logical event, but it happens.
Other than the few scripted appearances, once you’ve defeated Bowser in World 6 for the first time, you can freely switch between bros on Starship Mario, allowing you to take control of the L-Man whenever you desire. He still inexplicably lacks friction, but he does jump higher, making jump-based challenges easier, and many green stars a lot less deadly. Of course, this is kind of a step down for Weegie, who got an entire game mode to himself in the first Galaxy, but I suppose it’s nice for people who don’t want to play with him, as now he isn’t a mandatory step in reaching the very end.
It’s a little sad that Luigi has been demoted from second quest material to a common beggar, especially since someone on staff saw it fit to make so much of the game revolve around his trademark colour of green. But what can we do except take it as it is and simply make that choice to play as Luigi. His place in the galaxy may not be as glamorous as it was in years past, but at least we can still see from this recurring theme that he is loved, even though it’s a total pain in the ass to try to control him on the ground. Like seriously, do his shoes secrete oil or something?
It’s been no bed of roses
Because there were a total of four – count them, four – blog posts between January and March, I updated the news archive with a “1st Quarter 2010” page instead of one for each month. It’s quite sad. I used to love this blog… Oh well. Check this out! Crazy adventure time!
I never used to get sick, but since about November or something I’ve barely been able to go two weeks without contracting a cold or worse, and as a result, I’ve been drinking a lot of tea. Supposed to soothe the aches and throat and whatnot. It works okay at best, but I’ve actually grown quite fond of the stuff, and because my parents have a unexpectedly large collection of different teas, I’ve been able to be pretty adventurous with it too.
If you’re not familiar with Kool-Aid singles, they’re little packets that you pour into a glass or water bottle, instantly creating a single serving of Kool-Aid, removing the need for both sugar and a pitcher. This one is strawberry-Kiwi flavoured. They work really well, providing a possibly even stronger taste than traditional Kool-Aid, and given the fact that the orange tea has a pretty strong flavour itself, I’m a little apprehensive about how these are going to taste when they mix. I predict badly.
There’s really not much else to say. Both flavours stood out on their own somehow, and didn’t make an awful monstery taste like I’d predicted. I’m very satisfied with these results, and am anxious to try it out with other flavours of tea. Hopefully this is a universal trait of tea, and it’s not just this particular brand of teas that can withstand melding flavous with the Kool-Aid.
I’m so not funny anymore
I can’t sleep at night
Let me offer one bit of advice to you: never attept to roll a massive amount of coins by yourself, or in one sitting. It is the most tedious work ever. And it makes your hands smell like pennies and taste like awful.
Yeah, I only got thirty rolls in before I couldn’t take it anymore. And that’s still just a small fraction of the amount of pennies I inherited when young Zachary cleaned out his room. At the very least I was also able to sort out all the nickels and dimes from the pennies, which is satisfying enough for tonight. I still have a big margarine tub worth of pennies to roll, and I’m thinking when I get back to them I’m definitely gonna have to enlist some help.
It sure doesn’t help that it feels like I’m bringing work home with me. I don’t do a ton of coin rolling at work, but it’s still giving me those chills. Blah. And the fifteen dollars I’ve made for myself probably won’t feel quite worth it. But it’s still free money I guess.
Also… I don’t know. I forgot what I really meant to write about tonight. Well, whatever it was couldn’t have been that important. Um, maybe Song Summoner? If you’re out of the loop, Apple has only recently allowed us to use iTunes cards on the app store, and being without a credit card, I’m a little late to the dance on this one. It’s cool though! A simple turn-based strategy game that’s influenced by your music library? I love the concept anyway. The fact that the only way to power up your troops is to listen to the songs you created them with is a little annoying though. I don’t want to be restricted to only a handful of songs! Give me at least a little bonus for listening to a greater variety of tunes!
So yeah, that’s me reaching for a blog post. I sure am boring these days. Next time we talk about… tea! Wait, tea? What?
Love me like you’re gonna die
So things are getting better around here. I think I’ve finally got Torrential Equilibrium back to where it was pre-crash. Not that I’d been adding much lately, but the archive of old stuff is still all there for you to browse. I’ll take this opportunity to point out some of my personal favourite articles for you, in case you’re newish and need somewhere to start. Me, I just like going back to some of the better ones and appreciating how much love I used to put into this site. Maybe they’re not the most eloquent or best written articles, but they all hold a special place in my heart for one reason or another.
Nintendo Surprise – Unbeknownst to us at the time, this would start a long-running chain of surprise bag articles. Also, it’s summertime and I’m getting all nostalgic about that particular summer, like I always do.
Animal Crossing – It’s not really new games journalism, per se, but it is an article about a game that isn’t a true review. More of a short story written with the help of a video game. Oh fuck, I wrote a fanfic and didn’t even realize it.
World’s biggest McDonald’s – Maybe this is outdated now, but it was the biggest in 2004. And it had both an F-Zero arcade machine and a Bill Cosby standee. I hope it hasn’t changed a bit.
Dick Turtle surprise bag – Dick turtle is kind of a celebrity here at TE. I know I scour every dollar store I see in hopes of one day meeting him again. The day I do will be commemorated with a parade and fireworks. And cheerleaders.
Mickey’s Ultimate Challenge – I honestly believe this is one of the best articles on the site. It’s not often that I’m proud of my work, but I think this one is really great.
Makin’ pancakes with Shadowman – Another one I really love. There are lots of food-related articles on the site, and this is the standout one for me. Mostly because it was something I could just have fun and be creative with, as opposed to the others which were mostly reviews with lots of fluff.
Chat Radio – Of all my featurettes, Chat Radio is my favourite. It’s too bad that it can sometimes be boring and hard to understand. It’s the format’s fault. I really hope to do another one soon. That or get with the times and make a podcast.
So actually, looking back through the archives, there’s a lot of stuff in there that I really like. Almost wish I had more drive to create more crazy stuff like this. It’s just a shame I don’t do anything out of the ordinary anymore. I can only justify so many game reviews in a row. Anyway, back to my point, consider this “Ryan’s favourite articles Part 1” because I’m definitely gonna have to point out more, but all in one blog post seems excessive. Maybe next week or something. Oh! And now I have an even better idea! But I’ll keep it a secret for now…
I like your beard
You may have noticed that everything was blown up here for most of May. You may not have. I’m suspecting most are in the second category. Anyway, yeah. Host exploded in the most awful way, and only now are the pieces being picked up. I’ll slowly be restoring the blog and articles portion, but Coozy For Hire, well it doesn’t look like it’ll be quite as easy to pick up where we left off over there. For now, all we’ve got here on TE is this index page and the 404. I’m lazy, what can I say? But things should be back to normal around next week. And by that, I mean all the old content will be back and I won’t be posting anything new for weeks at a time.
I must say though, that it was nice to have a real excuse for not paying any attention to my website. Like a little vacation from feeling bad about not working on my little pet project.
I like Ke$ha. Whatever.
NB: This article was originally withheld due to barrel-bottom quality. Read at your own risk.
I’m fairly sure that my first encounter with new pop sensation Ke$ha was in a mall store. Probably Garage or something. But anyway, it was a somewhat obscured listening to her first big single “TiK ToK.” I was at first mildly annoyed by the song, writing it off as yet another one-hit wonder with yet another lame song about clubbing. It left a bit of an imprint in my mind though, because I caught myself humming it one day completely randomly, despite the fact that I hadn’t even heard the entire song.
And then I stated hearing it all the time. On the radio. In the clubs. On the woman’s iPod. As a music snob, my first instinct upon hearing a new song by an artist I’m not familiar with is to listen carefully to the lyrics so as to assess their artistic merit and pass final judgement on that song on that single aspect. Noting that the lyrics to “TiK ToK” were basically garbage (a hypothesis confirmed when I looked them up online), I decided that I did not like the song. I like my fair share of crappy songs, but the lyrics in this one really turned me off.
The thing that bothered me even more than the questionable lyrics was the fact that Ke$ha’s gimmick was apparently to slur her lyrics as if singing drunk. Singing about alcohol or being a drunk is one thing, but singing as if you are drunk is another thing entirely. I was unhappy to learn that it was in fact a recurring device in her music when the second single, “Blah Blah Blah,” hit. I found this song even more offensive, and at this point Stephanie became annoyed at me constantly voicing my annoyance at Ke$ha, since she had taking a liking to the songs, the latter possibly even moreso than the former.
It was a phenomenon that I was hoping would simply go away, like every other slutty pop tart eventually has. I decided to just try to suffer through it as quietly as possible, for Steph’s sake, but then it went up to the next level. We ended up hanging out at our friend’s place one night, and for a reason that I could not fathom at the time, Ke$ha’s album, Animal, had somehow found its way onto his iPod, which happened to be providing the background music for the evening. I suppressed as many negative comments as I could (of course not all could be contained), and tried to listen to a handful of other songs from the album. I was hard though, because we were talking over it, and for some reason “Blah Blah Blah” kept playing. I theorize that Steph had a hand in it in an attempt to annoy the crap out of me in a place where she knew I would hold in most of my criticism (and I wouldn’t blame her at all, I’m really fucking annoying when it comes to complaining about music I don’t like).
Not long after that night, I looked up Ke$ha’s Wikipedia entry to shed some light on the subject. Know thy enemy and all. And that’s when all my hate processes came to halt. Well, not a complete stop. But after following up with the reference pages, I was shocked to learn that not only was she actually really smart, as opposed to an idiot blonde whore (listen to the lyrics. Who wouldn’t come to that conclusion?), but the lyrics aren’t serious and are in fact supposed to be somewhat satiric. This made my head spin. And then she lists Queen and Beck (both of whose music I deeply respect) as inspirations. I’d never been less sure of what to think.
The very next day I was playing pool with Edwin, and completely randomly he mentioned that he’d listened to the entirety of Animal and that aside from the two singles, he found it an incredibly appealing album. Now, Edwin’s tastes in music and my own almost constantly conflict, but he doesn’t immediately buy into everything the Top 40 tells him to like, so I’m inclined to at least listen to and make a fair assessment of his recommendations. He stated that the beats and techno sounds had really won him over, being heavily reminiscent of chiptunes. I’m a man who loves his chiptunes, so I guess it was on that note that I decided that I would have to give the album a listen and see what he was going on about.
God damn it, he was right. They were all right.
I don’t listen to much music which could be cast into the pop genre without argument. Basically there’s Freezepop and that’s about it. The Ouendan soundtracks too, but J-Pop is a different beast entirely. I will irregularly tune into a bit of synth- or techno-pop, but never does the genre make itself a recurring theme in my music library. And now Ke$ha has gone and turned everything upside-down. I listened to Animal, although it started as an experiment in hopes of separating the parts I wanted to hear from those I didn’t. Before the album had finished downloading, I was well into my hunt for a program to remove the vocal tracks from MP3s. I tried a plugin for WinAmp first, and I didn’t even turn it on right away because when I loaded “Your Love is My Drug” I was instantly smitten.
Maybe it was the bleep-bloopy sounds playing softly in the background, or maybe it’s just a good song. I even played the song again right away because I was a bit confused about what I had just heard. Yup. Edwin was definitely right. A few more tracks in, I had noted that most of them did have succulent 8-bit sounds going on all over the place, and if there’s any one surefire way to get me interested in your product, it’s to play the nostalgia card. The music had me drowning in aural goodness that sounded like it had been composed on a good old grey brick Game Boy. Of course, a fair amount of the instruments (synthed instruments, whatever) had been upscaled because nobody but nerds like me are going to listen to songs that could have been made entirely with the Game Boy’s sound chip. I was a little disheartened to learn that none of the programs I’d downloaded could isolate those sounds, but I found solace in the fact that I really liked most of the album anyway.
The first track, “Your Love is My Drug,” as mentioned before, caught me right away. It’s just so infectious! The little end note always makes me laugh too. “Kiss N Tell” has some more of that chiptune-esque goodness that I looked into the album for in the first place, but I quite enjoy the rest of the song too. The aforementioned 8-bit sounds here for some reason reminds me of the music in Yogi Bear for Game Boy. I don’t know why, as the music isn’t really that similar. “Stephen” I swear could be on a Katamari soundtrack if it was in Japanese. That’s all I can think about when I listen to (and invariably sing along with) the song, especially during the slow verse. And “Animal”, oh how I love it! How did a song so in line with my tastes end up here? I don’t know!
I’m somewhat less excited about the rest of the album, and “TiK ToK” still rubs me the wrong way, but I’m warming up to it through familiarity. Though that stupid power-loss effect on the “shut us down-ow-ow-owwwnnn” part that’s on every second club song these days annoys me to no end. I never liked it, and I never will. I still don’t care for “Blah Blah Blah” on the whole however. There are a lot of songs on the album that I like that have fairly dirty lyrics, but “Blah Blah Blah” takes it just a little too far out of my comfort zone. Show a little restraint, woman! I try to tell myself that it’s satirical, but it provides little comfort.
The best thing I can say about Animal is that it provides a commendable amount of diversity. No two songs sound the same, and I was blown away by that, having judged the book by its cover again and whatnot. While Ke$ha’s supposed “war on pretension” theme doesn’t really come across without a little outside knowledge, it does make for a good party album, and some sweet driving tunes too! Being a man whose tastes cater mostly to 70’s rock, it’s not really socially acceptable for me to be enjoying this album as much as I am (at least in music snob circles), but then that’s actually the entire point. In fact, that fact that I’m picking this album apart means I’m doing it wrong. I still wish she’d picked a better genre to get into (punk would have suited the theme perfectly), because I just know I just fell a few rungs in the eyes of metal-heads everywhere. I really hate that I’m leaving the metal-heads unimpressed.
But in the end I’m happy. I don’t really think that my musical tastes will change as a result of this radically different introduction into my music library (and my iPhone!), and I don’t think that I’m going to be any less snobby about music either. But I feel like I have grown a little bit inside, expanding my horizons just enough to let a little bit of new experience trickle in, but not so much as to really change anything. It’s also quite a relief to get a little bit of hate out of my system. I mean, that hate and cynicism mostly defines how I look at music, but liking things makes life a lot easier. Also it pisses off my girlfriend a lot less. Speaking of which, I’m going to get so I-told-you-so’d when she reads this. That or she’s going to beat me with a sack of doorknobs for being so Goddamn annoying in my hated for Ke$ha and then turning around and saying how great she is. I think I’m just gonna hide out somewhere for a few days maybe…
Pokémon Article
Pokémon is not a regular occurrence in my life. Most of the time my interaction with the series will max out at thinking fondly of time spent playing the games, or choosing Lucario in Super Smash Bros Brawl. However, when the planets align and the fates conspire, I will take DS in hand and become one of the most indefinable gamer types in existence: The Pokémaniac.
There are many reasons that one might take up the task of being a Pokémon Master. Hell, some might not even care so much to be a master of the monsters, but rather just get in to enjoy a light-hearted RPG. I fall somewhere in between the two extremes. Me, I play Pokémon mostly because I’ve always played Pokémon. It’s more tradition than compulsion, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.
I take the game fairly lightly, mostly enjoying mastery of the two basic gameplay elements, battling and collecting. I don’t even properly understand what EV points are, nevermind how to make use of them and turn my monsters into fighting machines. I just like re-memorizing the different strengths and weaknesses of each Pokémon type every couple years, and then using that knowledge to lead my avatar (who is a 10-year-old girl) to victory over everyone else in my game card’s virtual world. It’s a very simple kind of satisfaction, but it’s one that I’ve yet to tire of.
The only qualm I have here is that while being able to drop all of my enemies in one hit is exciting for a while, eventually I always end up longing, for the, well, longer battles of other RPGs. Pokémon battles generally last about three minutes if it’s a full-on six-on-six fight, and that’s even when things aren’t going particularly well for either side. Wild battles and lesser trainers work perfectly fine with this formula, but when the gym leaders, rivals, and villain team leaders fall just as quickly, it feels fairly anticlimactic. This lends a much greater sense of importance to the Elite Four, who always put up a decent fight. I don’t want every fight to be a Tonberry King, but the battles that are supposed to be epic usually lose a lot of their punch because they’re over before you can really get into a groove.
There is of course an exception to this shortcoming, and it might be even more annoying: legendary Pokémon. I have fond memories of sitting in my room with my old gray brick Game Boy, hopelessly flinging Pokéballs at the legendary birds in the Blue version, entertaining myself with the thrill of the hunt, and that succulent joy of finally capturing the god-like avians. That thrill lingers no more in my soul, and legendary Pokémon now seem more of a chore to me than a enjoyable trial.
In SoulSilver, I’ve literally used two entire lunch breaks (and time away from work as well!) trying to catch the elusive Suicune, but the motherbuzzer simply will not be caught! I’ve spent thousands of Pokémon dollars on the finest Pokéballs money can buy and weeks amassing a collection of rare ball types, and yet none of them can hold the monster. I’ve engaged it in combat over a dozen times, the battles ending only because I ran out of capture devices, or more often because the beast killed itself because it ran out of attack moves and was forced to resort to the self-damaging Struggle move. Exasperated, I’ve moved on, and chose to come back only once I’ve found a way to acquire more Master Balls, which catch without fail.
All this trouble, and Suicune even stands still on the map, waiting for you to challenge it. It’s peers, Raikou and Entei are not so kind. They are equally ball-resistant, and to make matters worse, they travel randomly around the world map, making you play an awful game of cat-and-mouse until the game decides to take pity on you and you wind of in combat with one of them. At this point, you get a single move to make. Either you can throw a ball and hope for the best, or you can fire one attack off on the beast. After whatever happens (or perhaps even before, if your chosen fighter’s speed is low) the beastie will immediately run away, making you chase it around the world again. There are moves that can keep a Pokémon from running away in battle, but I don’t have the patience to not only find, but raise a monster for that sole task.
It gets progressively worse in that Game Freak has been doing this since the original Gold and Silver versions, and usually lets no less than three pocket monsters behave in this fashion. Which isn’t a whole lot when you consider that there are now a total of 493 of the little buggers. And that’s too many. Especially when you consider that a whole new generation will be unveiled by the end of the year. I was more than happy with 150. 250 wasn’t even that bad. I’d even feel less harassed by the sheer amount of monsters if Nintendo would allow just one version of the game in which you could actually catch them all. I know it flies in the face of everything the franchise stands for (NB: Making huge truckloads of money), but they could just make one special game card for me. I’m not saying it has to be an official release or anything. Having to trade between the two newest games isn’t a huge pain, but having to go back two handheld generations is a bit excessive. Moreso because even then there are a handful that can’t be obtained without cheating. Or the GTS.
And therein lies the greatest boon of the current Pokémon generation. The Global Trading System makes catching all those little bastards less of a tedious waste of time and more of a waiting game. Japanese kids will give you whatever you want so long as you’re willing to part with a monster that has an English name, and I have a lot of those. The Pokéwalker, the pedometer-esque device included with HeartGold and SoulSilver is another huge leap towards filling my Pokédex (bestiary, for the uninitiated). Not only does it let you catch new critters wherever you go without having to whip out your DS, but it also gives you access to a lot of Pokémon that you’d otherwise have to trade over from Diamond, Pearl, Sapphire or Ruby. And you get exercise at the same time! Everybody wins!
I’ll probably still never fill that Pokédex though. I’ve been making a sincere effort in SoulSilver, but I was very intent on doing it in Pearl too, and that petered out around the 300 mark. I even had a DS Action Replay to work with back then. If you could somehow play the game without ever getting the National Pokédex (which registers all monsters, the Johto Pokédex cuts out at 251) and pretend it didn’t exist, I probably would have done that. 251 is a much more reasonable goal. But I’m still going to go for it, because I’d like to do it even once, and better now than next year when I have roughly 100 more of the fuckers to catch.
After all this complaining, you might imagine that I’m not overly fond of the Pokémon franchise, but in reality I’d consider it my favourite RPG series. I know that all those Final Fantasies and Dragon Quests give you access to all the content in the game without making you buy several older installments in the series, but something about Pokémon really resonates with me. Strategy has a lot to do with it. Not many times in Pokémon will you just mash attack until everything is dead. I like that it makes you consider every move you make, and even though I’ll never actually finish a game, I do love the collecting aspect. I just like amassing large amounts of useless crap, and even better when it’s confined to the interior of a tiny little game card, and not cluttering up my living space.
So I’ll keep playing Pokémon. I’ll keep at SoulSilver until something shinier drags my attention away, and I’ll buy either the Black or White version when they come out next year, despite the fact that the last thing I want is another generation of new Pokémon. Next time you scoff at the “hook ’em while they’re young” marketing tactic, think about me and how much I love Pokémon despite all the things that annoy me about it.