Official Generation I-VIII Travelog Thread

[Pyrax]

Now that the games are out, this thread is for everyone to post a log about their accomplishments and activities. Arriving at a new town, catching a Pokémon, advancing the story, important battles, etc.

This thread will have spoilers, so please proceed with caution. Here's the travelog thread for previous games for reference..

 

[ShinyOotachi]

Got to squeeze in a quick hour of gameplay with Shield after work and before heading to bed.

I chose Scorbunny as my Starter and have caught all of the new Pokemon I have seen so far, including Skwovet, Rookidee, Blipbug (which is my least favourite looking so far), Wooloo and Nickit. I saw Yamper and Galarian Zigzagoon too but I didn't have time to catch them tonight.

My plan is to add a female Yamper to my team, because Bolthund reminds me of my dog Lola. Funnily enough, the last time I had a Pokemon called Lola was that Jynx in Red. I also plab to have Cursola and Appletun too, not decided what my last two will be yet though.

I'm really liking the game so far, the introduction - meet rival, get Starter, battle rival, get Pokedex and learn how to catch Pokemon. It was pretty standard, but enough little detail changes that I appreciated:
The detour into Slumbering Weald was great and reminded me of playing Diamond for the first time.
I also loved Leon's catching tutorial, how it was just like "this is how a Champion catch a Pokemon, throw the ball and done!" It really made me laugh because, whenever I am doing post-game catching to fill up my living Pokedex, that's exactly what I do!
I was so sad too when Sobble wasn't picked, but Leon decided to take it. Such a cute little moment that really added a lot to the Starter selection scene for me. The cutscene introducing Grookey, Scorbunny and Sobble was super adorable too.

Finally, I also took a moment to download the Gigantamax Meowth. I probably won't use it, but it's nice to have.

Unfortunately I had to stop just at the start of Route 2 and likely won't play any more until my next day off on Monday.

Although I will probably avoid reading too many posts in this thread so I don't see any story spoilers, but I hope everyone else is enjoying the beginning of their adventures in Galar!

 

[CynthiaLover]

Got off to a somewhat late start due to various events needing to be taken care of while I actually had the car today (such as getting blood work done, running a few errands, buying mom lunch, etc). But, in any case, I got off to a pretty decent start. I picked the female PC this time to see what her customization options are (and I've been loving the whole Scottish PC stuff, so why not?), named her Solaris, and, no, that's not a Sonic 06 reference, it's actually a reference to a very... very bizarre (yet oddly pleasing) set of recurring dreams I've had every now and then (I know, I've got a very weird head, as there's so much junk in it you'd need a HAZMAT team to clean it out). And the name just fit at the time.

ahem Anyway, I picked Scorbunny, named him Blitz, who had a Jolly nature, and, according to Serebii, Scorbunny's line is more of a physical attacking glass cannon, so that works for me. I beat Hop pretty easily despite the fact that Ember wouldn't be as potent due to the Jolly nature, but in regards to that, I've been nailing the Burn status with it left and right since, so that mitigates it. I LOVED the Slumber Weald cutscenes, as they were both spooky and awesome, really adding a very nice layer of mystery and suspense to the beginning. Afterward I spend some time catching most of the available Mons (I missed Caterpie, though I can always go back later), as well as obtaining the downloadable Meowth. Eventually, after Leon gave me the 20 Poke Balls, I went back and bought more so I could harvest Premier Balls, did a little Berry and clothes shopping, and eventually caught the next two members of my team: a male Yamper with a Naughty nature who I named Baxter (after my family's dachshund, though I know they're not the same breed, but it fits, especially the nature) and a female Rookidee with an Adamant nature named Skyla (I was really getting lucky with natures, especially that last one). Beat the snot out of Hop again (I like him, as he gives me Barry vibes, especially since he's so impatient), got the Dynamax band, and made my way to the Wild Area.

I spent a fair amount of time in the Wild Area, looking for shiny spots and engaging in Max Raid Battles. I caught pretty much everything I could, farmed lots of Watts, and got lots of TRs (even ones like Dragon Claw, Dazzling Gleam, Aura Sphere, and Waterfall). The only low-level Mon I didn't catch in the Wild Area at the time was a Snorunt, and that was because the RNG gods decided to balance out my very good luck with the Burn status and FREEZE my Blitz with a single Powdered Snow, followed by repeating that with Baxter. THAT stung! So, I had to abandon the Wild area after that for a bit in order to heal (and I managed to buy some Heal Balls and the Low Kick TR before leaving).

Did all the story stuff with the League, met Bede and Marnie, beat the stuffing out of Team Yell (they make Team Skull look strong, though it was early game), bought out all the TMs in the second Pokemon Center (all those valuable items I harvested from the Max Raid Battles paid off big time), beat Hop again, and moved on. I caught a Rolycoly before entering the mine, named him Fossil Fuel, and he had a Careful nature, so I figured I'd keep him around for a bit for some extra "firepower" (though I was aware that I had 3 Mons with Ground weaknesses). Also, Blitz evolved into Raboot just before that point, so things were starting to "heat up". Then I had my encounter with Bede. I LOVED beating the slag out of him, felt so good to punt his granny haired caboose right out of the mine, as I despise the "love" everyone has for "jerk" rivals (granted, friendly rivals that worship the ground you walk on, like Hau, disturb me, so I kinda like a midway point with my rivals, like Barry, Cheren, and Bianca). Anyway, I made it through the mine, caught a bunch of new Mons (and I wonder WHY Meowth had to get a SECOND regional form, and kind of an ugly one, too), did the event with Sonia, evolved Skyla and Fossil Fuel into Corvisquire and Carkol, respectively, and finally turned off the game for the day. I'll face Milo tomorrow or so, though I might return to the Wild Area to farm for more Watts and rare items in Max Raid Battles. Though, at this point, I've got a ton of EXP candy and other stuff, so I might also do some camping to further boost my Mons' affection levels. I know that I still have some Dynamaxed Mons to catch (like Budew, Butterfree, and so on), so I might look for them while I'm at it. We shall see.

 

[Sakuraa]

I started my playthrough of Shield today and man did I have a blast. Spoilers for length.

Spoiler

I must say, I've been having a blast. The visuals for this game are amazing. I love how amazing the cutscenes look. The starters cutscene is probably the cutest thing I've ever seen and it's totally something I've wanted to see in a game for a while. I've always considered the starter selection to be one of the most important moments in the game, so seeing so much life added to it by showing off all of the starters' personalities was amazing. I went with Scorbunny, and only needed to reset once for a female. I named her Irene and she's got the Adamant nature. Hop of course went with Grookey, which I think fits him really well. He keeps talking about "green power" and I assume that's something that will change based on the starter he has.

That moment of seeing what I assume is an alternate form of Zamazenta in the foggy forest was so weird, yet cool. That thing literally just waltzed right up to us and started a battle out of nowhere. I was shook and terrified.

My opinions on Hop so far? I love him. He totally reminds me of Barry, which were the vibes I got from him since he was revealed. I love how he calls Leon "Lee" and is always talking about his story an journey to become Champion. I also love his over-confident nature and how he proclaims that he will be the next future Champion.

Marnie is adorable. I love how she speaks with an accent; that's something I totally didn't expect from her. I'm interested in seeing where her story goes.

Bede on the other hand...meh. Right off the back he came off as way too much of a tryhard. It's like he's doing everything in his power to be obnoxious and belittle me, for no reason other than his massive ego from his Chairman Rose endorsement. I do like how his team functions and how they can cover their weaknesses and deal out lots of damage, despite all being the same type (something I also didn't expect). But as a character, I'm not liking him so far, but who knows how that'll change later on.

As usual, I couldn't start focusing on my journey until I got a new outfit...sort of. No new dress options yet, so I just took off that gray hoodie I had by default. I got some navy blue glasses, purple leggings, and a pink version of the default hat from the first boutique. At the second one, I bought a new pink bag (after having to scavenge for money since I couldn't afford it initially). I ran out of money getting my hair and makeup done beforehand (those are so expensive ) I'm now sporting pink, high pigtails with the curly bangs and some green lip gloss. I also changed my eye color to pink. (Yeah, I've got a lot of pink right now, but hey, it's my favorite color. I've got to go all out with it). I made a cute looking league card with some additions I'm certain are from my Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee data.

I already know what I want my team to be, but it'll take a while to get everyone assembled. So for now, I've been using a bunch of temporary members; including Wooloo, Rookiedee-Corvisquire, Nickit-Thievul , G-Meowth, Gift Pikachu, Yamper, and Skunky. I did catch my second permanent team member right before battling Milo, a Milcery named Red Velvet. I initially wanted to use a G-Max Alcremie on my team since I love its design and it would work great with the theme I'm going for, but sadly, I think it would take way too long to ever get one and I don't have that patience. I also don't really like the Wild Area, so I'd rather spend as little time there as possible.

I loved the opening ceremony for the gym challenge. It was really epic seeing all of the gym leaders in that stadium, waving and strutting like the superstars they are. My chosen league number is 9, my favorite number. I removed Irene from my team for a good while, because I wanted her to participate in the first gym battle in her first stage (something I always do), so I made sure she wouldn't hit level 16 before the battle. Well, unfortunately, I was unaware that Milo's Eldegoss was level 20. I knew it was higher than previous first gyms (I remember pre-release material showing it at lv 19), but I was kind of caught off gaurd by that. So sadly in my first Dynamax battle ever...I lost. Of course I had plenty of Pokemon to stall out and weaken Eldegoss enough that Irene could take him out once I healed her, but I'm kind of disappointed that she wasn't able to win her first gym battle on her own. Yeah, it was my choice to bring her in underleveled, but I really thought she'd be able to take Eldegoss's attacks better. Oh well, she evolved after the battle, so all's well that ends well. I enjoyed the grass mission as well. It was a really cute idea. I'm also so happy that this gym gives me a free Friend Ball (I'm disappointed that once again it seems we're limited to only one Apricorn ball. I was really hoping to be able to buy them ).

My goal for tomorrow is to try to evolve Red Velvet and get a new permanent capture.

 

[IncineROAR]

I'm about to go to the opening ceremony for the gym challenge

Team so far:

Sobble
Rookidee
Nickit
Chewtle
Yamper

+ gift Meowth that I don't know what to do with.

There's no rhyme or reason to my team, they are just all captures I've made.

 

[techitisJ]

Yes the travel log! I always enjoy writing these! I played a good amount today, so I have a lot to write.

Spoiler: Lengthy Post

I started my journey through Galar in Pokemon Sword today. I go with Hop to meet his older brother, the champion, who gifts us with a starter Pokemon of our choosing. I pick Sobble, who I named Marion, and Hop picks Scorbunny (a very fitting pick for his name). The next day, Hop and I have our first rival battle, and we're about to head out when we hear a crash coming from the gate to the Slumbering Weald. We go to follow the Wooloo that broke through, and find ourselves in the foggy forest, where we are ambushed by a mysterious Pokemon. I tried to fight it, but I blacked out.

Leon discovered Hop and I, and he guides us back. In Route 1, I encounter my second team member, Elewys the Rookidee, and then go meet Sonia, the Professor's assistant. I then head out to Route 2 where I catch 2 more members of my team, Duncan the Nickit, and Alina the Yamper. After obtaining the Pokedex from Professor Magnolia, I have a second battle with Hop, and after we both obtain Wishing Stars, which Magnolia uses to give us the ability to Dynamax.

The next day, Hop and I take the train to Motostoke, but we have to stop due to some Wooloo in the tracks, so, we decide to go through The Wild Area. For over an hour, I ran around the wild area, doing a couple of max raid battles, collecting items, and finding rare Pokemon. I ventured out into more dangerous territories too, with high-level Pokemon than my own team could handle. While hanging out here, Marion evolves into a Drizzile, and Elewys evolves into a Corvisquire. After I have had my fill, I go back to Motostoke to register for the League and put my number on my jersey. Number 549 ((each number stands for the amount of letters in the names of my 3 most important characters I have written)). Staying in the Budew in, I meet Team Yell and battle them off so people can check in. I also meet Marnie in the process, a mysterious young trainer. I take part in the Opening Ceremony, and then it's off to Turffield. On the way, I meet a potential rival in Bede, who is an absolute jerk. I take him out quickly though since Duncan had just evolved into Thievul.

I meet up with Sonia and get to hear more about her research. It's quite fascinating what she is going into. Her research, and the town of Turffield seem like they are filled with ancient lore, which is one of my favorite things in Pokemon. Then, I go to challenge Milo, taking out his Pokemon quickly with my powerful Corvisquire. After that, I make my way through Route 5, where I catch my 5th team member, Cyder the Applin, and try to get some levels on him. I battle against Team Yell and make my way across.

In my 3rd win against Hop, Alina evolves into a Boltund and continues to prove she is one powerful Pokemon. I reach Hulbury and challenge Nessa. Alina makes quick work of her 3 pokemon, and then I go to celebrate with Sonia, Chairman Rose, and Oleana at the Seafood Resteraunte. Dinner ends quickly though, and Hop is ready to get a move on back to Motostoke to challenge Kabu, but informs me that Kabu is not there, but in Galar Mine 2.

Current Team:

Marion the Drizzile
Elewys the Corvisquire
Duncan the Thievul
Alina the Boltund
Cyder the Applin

If I play anymore today it might just be catching Pokemon or experimenting with different styles. These games are amazing so far and I can't wait to play more!

 

[NMLewis]

I enjoyed handling Bede's entire team with Dottler. I took screenshots of Bede's irritated face with Dottler in front of him.

 

[TheElderKing]

I enjoyed handling Bede's entire team with Dottler. I took screenshots of Bede's irritated face with Dottler in front of him.

Done the same thing. XD

Spoiler

I started my journey with Scorbunny, and immediately added Rookidee and the Blitbug to the team.

The latter evolved in Dottler shortly before reaching Motostoke and became the MVP in numerous fight, against Hop, Bede and Mylo (Scorbunny and Rookidee evolved, but I decided to leave the former behind to have a 2vs2 and an additional challenge) I added Toxel to the team while going through Route 5, and fought Nessa with two members of my team at a disadvantage, but Dottler managed to beat Nessa’s Drednaw with Max Overgrowth (from Energy Ball).

The journey back to Motostoke saw the addition of Hattena, beating Marnie (the fight was more difficult because I boxed for a second Raboot, and my team was slightly underleved and with a weakness to Dark moves). Kabe was beaten thanks to Raboot and Corvisquire, that boosted by Hone Claws resisted Giga Centiskorch’s Max attack and dedeated him with two Max Airstreams.

I leveled a bit before going to the second part of the Wild Area, with Toxel and Dottler evolving in Toxtricity and Orbeetle.

My team so far:

Sanji the Raboot
Erza the Corvisquire
Merlin the Orbeetle
Punk Saura the Toxtricity
Cassandra the Hattena

Bonus member: Barraskewda.

 

[ValorSugarcakes]

Well finally. We now have a female professor for the first time ever in Pokemon! Also, I chose Raboot for starter

 

[TheElderKing]

Well finally. We now have a female professor for the first time ever in Pokemon! Also, I chose Raboot for starter

We had one in Gen 5.

 

[NotAPassenger]

Toxel is a pain to train with that move set my my.

I’m really enjoying Max Raids more than I thought I would. Some fun Pokémon available through it.

 

[TheElderKing]

Toxel is a pain to train with that move set my my.

I’m really enjoying Max Raids more than I thought I would. Some fun Pokémon available through it.

It’s better to train it in the back of the team, to be honest. It was useful to par Pokémon with Nuzzle, and little more.

Toxtricity is far more powerful, though, and it learns lots of moves with the move relearner.

 

[Sakuraa]

Spoiler: Kinda long

Didn't do much today, but I did catch my next permanent team member, an Applin named Seulgi. I wanted to use her against Nessa, but sadly this thing seems to learn no grass moves whatsoever, not even from TMs which is stupid as all hell, and apparently I can't evolve it to give it real moves until I get to the 4th gym....yeah needless to say I'm quite disappointed with that. So now I'm definitely gonna struggle against Nessa, but oh well. At least I was able to successful catch her in the Friend Ball I wanted her in, and she has the new ability I wanted.

Honestly, a lot of my time was spent camping. I realized I forgot to talk about it yesterday. I love that there are random trainers with camps you can explore around the region. It's really cute and they're nice to spend some time at. Camp in general is adorable. I love watching my Pokemon running around, playing with the toys and playing with each other. I played fetch with Irene as a Scorbunny for a bit yesterday and thought it was super cute that she held the ball in her mouth.

Today I cooked curry for the first time. (I went back to the wild area thinking I could get that stupid apple I need to evolve Seulgi only to find out that I actually can't ). But I did find they guy to sell me curry ingredients so it wasn't a total waste of time. I also changed my tent color to pink, because of course I would do that. I don't think my curries turned out all too. Well. I didn't have that many berries so I didn't want to waste them all. I only used one in each curry and they seemed okay, but clearly not the best. All those cool animations with the curry explodin from the pot from the trailers didn't happen, so I'll need to work on my cooking. My team seemed to enjoy it though, so that's good. I do wish we could choose which Pokemon gets the curry before making it while in camp, rather than it being based on whoever is first in the party. With me being me, I wanted to feed everyone, and it was just a bit annoying that I had to exit camp, rotate my party around and go back in camp so everyone could eat. But overall, I think the feature is fun.

I realized that I forgot to talk about Leon yesterday, and all I want to say is that I love how flashy he is. That dramatic pose he does sometimes is just so cute. Also, I love his interactions with Charizard. I like how he'll sometimes just be doing his own thing, like when he was chilling with random townspeople while Leon was waiting for me to get to Magnolia's lab.

Right now, I'm trying to see if I can get a sweet from Motostoke to evolve my Milcrey Red Velvet into an Alcremie. I didn't get one today and wasn't able to try yesterday since I didn't know about it until late, so hopefully tomorrow with bring me good luck.

 

[Dizzard]

Toxel is a pain to train with that move set my my.

I’m really enjoying Max Raids more than I thought I would. Some fun Pokémon available through it.

It can't be any worse than trying to train an Applin.

It knows Withdraw and Astonish, learns nothing via level up.....and attract through TMs/TRs. That's it.

 

[ShinyOotachi]

I got a chance to squeeze in another hour when I got home from work.

I didn't do much, but along the way to the Professor house (which is just beautiful), I caught a female Yamper (who is the second member of my team) as well as a Lotad, Hoothoot, Magikarp and a Galarian Zigzagoon.

Hop was pretty easy to beat. He kind of reminds me of a combination of Barry and Hau, which I think is great. He might be my favourite friendly rival ever! The wishing star scene was cool and I really love the relationship between Sonia and Magnolia, there seems to be a lot of depth there and I do really want to see Sonia achieve and earn that recognition from her grandmother.

I got my special Gigantamax Eevee and had a quick look at the Wild Area. One of the red den lights was different from the rest, it had like wispy things coming from it but it was just a Natu. Does anyone know if there is anything special about it?
The battle was so much fun and, even though I knew it was coming, Natu's really deep and loud cry actually caught me off guard hahaha! I caught the Natu, got some free gifts from some other players and then (stupidly) took on a Dynamax Roggenrolla with my Level 10 Gigantamax Eevee. It took forever to take down, but I caught it. I just really wanted to see the big flooffy Eevee!

I had to call it a night there, but I am so excited to spend my day off on Monday doing nothing but exploring Galar! I hope everyone is continuing to enjoy the games too!

 

[Dizzard]

I got my special Gigantamax Eevee and had a quick look at the Wild Area. One of the red den lights was different from the rest, it had like wispy things coming from it but it was just a Natu. Does anyone know if there is anything special about it?

Not sure, my first guess would be that its stronger or has better stats (or a better chance of a hidden ability)

Although when I first attempted the raid battle with the wispy light coming from it I had already done all the other available max raid battles and they hadn't respawned. However after I did the wispy light raid battle a bunch of new raid battles popped up. So maybe you have to beat the wispy one to respawn the max raid battles.

 

[prog rocker]

I enjoyed handling Bede's entire team with Dottler. I took screenshots of Bede's irritated face with Dottler in front of him.

Wait, are you telling me Bede doesn't shrug loses like Blue? Then I can find beating him satisfactory! December can't get here soon enough...

 

[Juliko]

I just made it to Hammerlocke Stadium, but that's about it.

Also, does anyone have a spare Sobble they'd like to trade away? I'd love to trade some Pokemon to you for one. I have a Machamp, a low level Diggersby, a Duraludon, many Sizzlipedes, and a few Vanillites if anyone wants them. My character's name is Ramona, and my Switch code is SW-5239-6636-1207. Gender doesn't matter, as long as it doesn't have a nickname.

 

[IncineROAR]

I'm already annoyed with Hop, he's a more annoying version of Hau.

I did my first.. I guess it's called Max Raid?.. with my longcat Meowth. My team hasn't changed, I haven't invested much time in the game yet. I think I put more time into Community Day than I have the game so far.

 

[zoroarctic]

Took on Nessa a little while ago and got my ass kicked. Time for a rematch.

Edit: Success! Almost another disaster, but I managed to take down her Drednaw thanks in part to my Butterfree paralyzing it with Stun Spore. 2 Badges in the books now.

My Shield team so far

Raboot (Warren), level 26
Stunky (Mephiti), level 25
Galarian Meowth (Ilya), Level 24
Espurr (Lynx), Level 20
Electrike (Lobo), Level 24
Butterfree, level 25