The Official Travelog + Let's Play Thread

[FinnishPokéFan92]

HeartGold playthrough: minor update.

My team members are all at level 62, and I've managed to catch a Chansey in the Safari Zone, allowing me to get a Lucky Punch. Still waiting for a Chansey outbreak in order to effectively hunt for at least one Lucky Egg. I've also won the Bug-Catching Contest for the second time, earning my second Sun Stone. I plan to participate in the contest again in the future to see if I can earn some other rewards and fill some more pages in my Pokédex. Using a Parasect with Spore and False Swipe as my Bug Catcher. My quest to collect all the Plates also continues, as I board the S.S. Aqua every day when it leaves.

 

[EmpoleonProd]

With the game already out in a lot of the world, and coming out in the Americas in under 2 hours at the time that I create this, I figured many would love to share their experiences together as they play this game through release day! Spoiler tag should be self-explanatory, as people who have the game will be posting things here that people who haven't gotten the game yet might not want to be spoiled about yet! I'll be playing the games myself all night.

This is the place to keep others updated on your Pokemon adventure, anything from beating your rival, gym badge progress, catching a legendary, or maybe even encountering a random shiny! Happy adventuring everyone! I hope everyone has fun with these new games!

 

[EmpoleonProd]

So for those of you who didn't already figure it out, your starter's gender is decided the very moment you first boot up the game, in the scene where the starter jumps into the TV, before you even choose a language, that's when you'll be able to look at the tail, so for those who want a specific gender, you have to go to the Switch save data and delete it to retry for a new gender, nature however is NOT decided, this is decided at the moment you enter into dialogue with Oak, so save before attempting to leave Pallet Town for specific natures!

Edit: After awhile, I finally got my male Naive nature Pikachu! The graphics in this game are so stunning! I feel like I'm on a real life Pokemon adventure. I love how they gave the starters perfect IVs.

 

[ShinyOotachi]

I got my copy of Let's Go Eevee yesterday, but only got to play it for a little bit after work (the joys of doing 12 hour shifts).

I'm playing as Elaine with a male Eevee. So far I have caught Bellsprout, Pidgey, Rattata, Spearow, Weedle, Caterpie and Pikachu. However, Bellsprout is the only one of them I am planning to hold on to as a part of my as yet undecided team. I absolutely adore Bellsprout's following animation and how she tries to run ahead of me, it is so cute!

The game is very beautiful, atmospheric and immersive in it's little ways so far and I hope they continue working on those smaller details for future titles because they really do make you feel like you are so involved in the world.

My only problem so far is I'm struggling to get used to using only one Joycon (especially after spending the last month playing Skyrim) and I find it a little jarring when Elaine moves from stationery to running, it's as if she snaps to an unseen grid and the camera moves slightly to follow her. But I am sure these are things I'll get used to as I play on.

 

[techitisJ]

I got Let's Go Pikachu this afternoon, had a super fun adventure with my roommate going to the mall and getting it. I don't have any Pokemon Merch with me while I'm away at college, so I put together an outfit that felt kind of Pokemon trainerish.

I booted up the game when i got back to the dorm, and am immediatly introduced to the cuteness of Pikachu. I did reset the game 3 times to get a female Pikachu, since I wanted to name her after my first Pikachu I ever caught in Yellow. Her name is Torin, and she is the cutest thing to exist on this planet.

I battled my rival with my partner after delivering Oak's parcel, along with a new Pidgey named Donnie and an unnamed Rattata and Oddish. After winning, I went back up and caught more Pokemon. My goal is to definitely get that Pokedex all filled out, so a lot of Pokemon have been caught.

I got to Viridian Forest and remembered and got myself a Caterpie named Darius as well as other Pokedex catches. I decided I really wanted to try to get Bulbasaur in there, so I ran around and caught some Pokemon for a few minutes. I see a Butterfree float across screen, and it has pink feet.

I run into not one, but 3 pokemon, and luckily it stays on the screen after, and flies slow enough that I was able to catch up to it and grab it. Shiny Butterfree, and my first random shiny in a main series game since I got an Audino in Omega Ruby in 2016. I caught him and named him Avander (idk, might change it). I don't know if I'll keep him on the team, since Butterfree isn't the best, but he's here for now.

Got my Bulbasaur, he's amazing, and I used him to challenge Brock. Brock was a good fight. Went along and got a Mankey named Penelope, and a Clefairy I plan to name, but haven't quite yet. Jessie and James wreaking trouble in Mount Moon, and I just quote them every time I see them. I defeat all the trainers above Cerulean and catch Pokemon, save Bill, and then defeat Misty, and that's where I have left off. Gonna get some rest now and let my joy-con charge so I can play tomorrow.

 

[Envoy]

I’m taking my sweet time with it. I reset for about an hour to get Pikachu with a decent Nature. I just beat Brock. I now have a Bulbasaur in my team. I am perfectly happy with just Bulbasaur and Pikachu for now. Bulba is my fave and Pika is just adorbs.

 

[Blazing Charmander]

I started up my newest Kanto adventure with Let's Go Pikachu last night, and I would say that the game's strongest suit so far is its graphics. A HD Pokemon adventure is as much a novelty in 2018 as a 3D one was with X/Y in 2013. Equally so, I am impressed with the level of interaction with the Pokemon and world around you. This feels like a fully realised Kanto region. The same can't be said for the game's mechanics, which I will move on to shortly.

My first action, in a moment of sheer spontaneity was to name my rival 'Not Gary'... sorry fella, but you will now have to roll with that name. Speaking of novelties, my first capture on Route 1 was an Oddish whom I have chosen to be my designated Grass type despite being lucky enough to encounter a couple of Bulbasaur in Viridian Forest. It's nice to have a Pokemon that isn't your typical regional bird/rodent available straight off the bat for once. Who knows whether the 'Saur will feature in my team later on in the journey - I've always had a soft spot for it.

So... mechanics. They're a very mixed bag for me. Much has been made of Game Freak's pandering towards the youngest demographic and the casual GO crowd, which I think there is no escaping from. Everything from stripping wild battles down to the Pokemon GO style all the way to giving trainers (at least on the earlier routes) one or two low-levelled Pokemon for your Pikachu/Eevee to tear through reeks to me of trying to make these entries as accessible as possible to newcomers. I am already missing niche features such as abilities and the ability to switch off the Exp.Share. I suspect I've already had a taste for at least one of the challenges for veterans with the existence of various Coach Trainers.

Back to my playthrough, we made short work of Brock thanks to Nidoran M's Double Kick against Geodude, and rinse and repeat for Pikachu against Onix. I was disappointed to see the ease at which Pikachu, one level higher than the normally resilient Onix, beat it with a non-STAB move.

I am now outside Mt Moon, with a team consisting of:

Pikachu
Oddish
Pidgey
Butterfree
Nidoran M
Mankey

 

[Envoy]

Oh my god you guys!!! I have an Ivysaur following me around and it’s the most adorable thing ever!!! This game gets 20/10 just for that!!!

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

Time to use a Revive on this thread!

Thanks to the six Lucky Eggs I got for myself during a Chansey outbreak, grinding became very easy. I re-challenged and beat the Pokémon League with a level 71 team, and the next day, I trained my team up one more level each before realizing that I had 24 Rare Candies in my Bag, so I raised my team up to level 77 and climbed up Mt. Silver. I battled and beat Red in an epic showdown, where each of my team members got to take down one of his Pokémon. I also proceeded to get a Treecko and a Beldum from Steven and a Charmander from Professor Oak, as well as catching Kyogre.

As I've now collected every single Pokéathlon Data Card and caught every Pokémon that appears in outbreaks, I now only intend to catch every Unown form from the Ruins of Alph before wrapping up this playthrough and moving on to White 2.

 

[ShinyOotachi]

I played just a little bit more tonight after work.
I caught a Bulbasaur in the forest and was able to defeat Brock quite easily with my Bellsprout. I explored a little of the next route, evolving Caterpie into Metapod and Weedle into Kakuna following the same battle, which was oddly satisfying. I caught a couple of Ekans to see what the differences were and to get some candy.

I left it there, I was too tired to continue... Until I remembered that I also got the Pokeball Plus with my game! So I quickly booted it back up again and added Mew to my collection too

 

[EmpoleonProd]

I have six gym badges and was able to get Team Rocket out of Silph Co. last night!

I'm now on Cinnabar Island with my full team of six Pokemon, as I've managed to catch a Magmar and revive an Aerodactyl out of a fossil, my current team stands as:

1. Pikachu, Lv. 54
Nature: Naive
Moveset:
-Thunderbolt
-Splishy Splash
-Floaty Fall
-Zippy Zap

2. Snorlax, Lv. 45
Nature: Adamant
Moveset:
-Headbutt
-Fire Punch
-Rest
-Yawn

3. Dewgong, Lv. 46
Nature: Calm
Moveset:
-Aurora Beam
-Toxic
-Substitute
-Rest

4. Magmar, Lv. 45
Nature: Modest
Moveset:
-Flamethrower
-Psychic
-Fire Spin
-Toxic

5. Aerodactyl, Lv. 44
Nature: Jolly
Moveset:
-Rock Slide
-Crunch
-Roost
-Rock Throw

6. Dragonair, Lv. 35
Nature: Jolly
Moveset:
-Dragon Tail
-Thunder Wave
-Agility
-Dragon Rage

I'm currently making my way through the Pokemon Mansion to get the key for the 7th gym, I've been pretty religious with catching everything as well as transferring many Pokemon over from GO, My Pokedex is sitting at 93 obtained, 128 seen, and I have many still in my GO Park that I haven't caught quite yet. I also have 8 Meltan on GO so I'll transfer those over on a day I can set aside to set their nature.

I still haven't transferred Mew out of my Pokeball Plus yet, I did a test run without saving with the static starters and Lady Celadon CAN control gift Pokemon natures, so I have a theory that she'll work for Mew as well, so near the end of today when I'm done making my miscellaneous catches, I'll set it to Timid and see if I can get a Timid Mew.

 

[zoroarctic]

Picked up LGP Friday, but couldn't get around until playing it this morning. Had some good luck with catching a shiny Spearow on Route 22. In Viridian Forest right now.

 

[EmpoleonProd]

So I've basically beaten the main game.

I beat the Pokemon League, caught all four legendaries, completed the Pokedex including Mew and Meltan (no Melmetal yet), battled Blue and Green, and also beat the Pikachu Master Trainer. My team all fully evolved and has their proper competitive movesets.

So I was around Viridian Forest to get a catch combo chain of 31+ on Pidgeys so I could walk out of the forest and keep resetting the spawns in the sky for a legendary trio, well to my surprise I saw a shiny Charizard up in the sky!

So naturally I had to go up and catch it, which reset my Pidgey combo, I'm trying to get a bird to spawn and then see if the birds are chainable.

I believe I got my Charizard at 1/1024 shiny odds, based on Serebii's shiny table on their catch combo page shown here: Pokémon Let's Go, Pikachu & Let's Go, Eevee - Catch Combo

It's not clear whether a catch combo improves shiny odds for ANY Pokemon or just the one you have the catch combo for, so either my chain of 31 Pidgeys didn't affect Charizard's shiny odds and it's 1/1024, or it did and my odds were 1/273.

I do have a shiny charm for Pokedex completion AND a max lure going at all times.

Picture of the shiny Charizard here:


View: https://i.imgur.com/1JRUY7O.jpg

 

[ShinyOotachi]

Been playing rather constantly these last couple of days.
My current team has Eevee, Victreebel, Porygon, Kinglet and an Arcanine and Alolan Vulpix I transferred over from Go.
I have to say... I hate Go Park... It took me about 40 Ultra Balls and all my Razz Berries to catch my Alolan Exeggutor and it was hard enough to catch it in Go originally. I transferred over monsters I can't get myself like Gengar and Machamp and I've not been able to catch them yet because they keep fleeing. So annoying.
On a more positive note... I chained Weedle in Viridian Forest and eventually (after about 2-3 hours) found a Shiny Weedle with "Best" stats in everything other Attack which is just "Ok". What I loved about the mind-numbing search for thot was how exasperated Eevee got during it all, it was super adorable.
Today, I plan to get back to the main game. I have just completed Pokémon Tower and I am getting ready to take on the Celadon Gym.

 

[ShinyOotachi]

I was able to defeat Erika relatively easily and made my way down Pokémon Road, on my Arcanine, to Fuschia City. There I learned Eevee's surfing technique and decided to make my way immediately to Cinnabar Island and subsequently Seafoam Island.
In Seafoam, I caught a great Jynx and replaced my Porygon. I have nicknamed my Jynx "Lola" as a nod to the traded Jynx from way back when , who was the centrepiece of my team in the original Red.
I caught Articuno and decided to then head to the power plant for Zapdos. While exploring the plant, I came across a random Shiny Electabuzz!! My first random non-captured/bred/gift Shiny since Emerald! I caught it and I am so thrilled!
I also caught Zapdos and next I am going to get back to the main story and take on the Fuschia City Gym.

 

[zoroarctic]

Taking it slowly so far. The SS Anne just left, and I evolved my Sandshrew into Sandslash before I take on Surge. My team as of now: Electra (Pikachu), Finch (Fearow), Caesar (Growlithe), Monarch (Butterfree), Sandslash, and Mankey.

Oh, and I encountered a Clefable in Mt. Moon back on Monday but it ran away before I could catch it. I'm still mad about that.

 

[EmpoleonProd]

While trying to build a catch combo on Chansey for experience, I ran into a shiny Chansey on just a catch combo 2 and of course caught it. The nature is garbage though which is my bad for not setting a nature for Chanseys beforehand, knowing I was going to go chain a bunch of them. I'll have a nature set for it if I run into another one.

 

[EmpoleonProd]

Alright so now I'm on my way around to knocking the Master Trainers in the game, starting with the primary members of my team, Pikachu, Dragonite, Magmar, Dewgong, Snorlax, and Aerodactyl.

Pikachu was absurdly easy because my Pikachu is almost maxed out on candies.

Dragonite and Magmar were tough.

For Dragonite I had the set of Reflect, Outrage, Ice Beam, Roost. The Master Trainer for Dragonite almost always opens with Reflect, so despite being a Jolly Dragonite, I had to teach it Blizzard, I outspeed so I would go for Blizzard, knowing it's going to set Reflect after my attack, and THEN I'd set my own Reflect, because I outspeed, and my Reflect will last a turn later, which means they won't get the jump on me for the Outrage one shot, they'd also go for Ice Beam after I put up Reflect, but two Roosts heals me to full + got me to lose my Flying typing and take half the damage I took from the first Ice Beam. So it became a game of seeing who gets a random freeze or a crit first, it was tough and it took me a few tries, but that set overall ended up winning me the game.

For Magmar I had to do similar shenanigans, my Magmar set was Toxic, Taunt, Protect, and Substitute. The opposing Magmar has Psychic, Toxic, Confuse Ray, and Fire Spin, and the AI wants to stack all those statuses on you at once, so I always open with Substitute and outspeed. It goes for Confuse Ray but has no effect, after that I go for Toxic and it uses Psychic to break my substitute, from here it's just a matter of using Taunt, Protect, and Substitute to protect myself. I go for Protect right after to 1. let Toxic do it's thing and 2. Scout for what his next move is, go for either Taunt or Substitute depending on whether he's trying to status me or attack me and react accordingly, banking that you scout for a move he's going to use again.

Aerodactyl was by far the hardest, even with Mega Evolution, I still got out sped, I basically only won because the opponent missed an Iron Tail, he almost always goes for Toxic first so he Toxics, I Mega Evolve and Toxic, then he Iron Tails, I put up Reflect, he was probably going to get the KO even through Reflect, but he misses the second Iron Tail, I used Rest right here to heal to full, and basically tanked him down until he was forced to use Roost just to survive (it seems Toxic has a damage cap of half HP, so he was stuck using Roost to even live) so I just used a Crunch to get him to just below half and poison knocked him out, it was a super lucky battle. If he hits the Iron Tail two times in a row, I almost always lose.

Snorlax was supposed to be one of the easier ones because the AI set is admittedly terrible, but the set is incredibly annoying, it only knows Rest, Reflect, and Facade. So I knew a few things going in: 1. Toxic was useless for this fight 2. Brick Break gets rid of his Reflect and is super effective. 3. He has Rest, so this is going to inevitably be a stall war that could end in some usage of Struggle. 4. Seismic Toss also essentially ignores Reflect. My set was Seismic Toss, Brick Break, Rest, and Reflect. Basically I had to PP stall him, I used a lot of Brick Breaks early on to make the AI use up its Reflect PP. I used my own rest as a counter of how many he's used, so I'd rest a turn after he did until he had just two rests left, I saved my last two for a possible struggle battle. Once he used his last Rest, I finished off my PP of Seismic Toss, which ignores Reflect since the damage is based on the opponent's level. I knew at this point if I could get him to Struggle first, he'd faint himself from the recoil and I had 2 PP of Rest left to live a few extra turns. When I finally got him to start using Struggle, all I had left was 2 Reflect and 2 Rest, and he fainted himself after just two Struggles, I never got to use the last four moves I had. This fight felt like a freaking chess match, it was all about having moves left, and I think Gamefreak had to give this Snorlax fight only three moves or else it would be way too hard to beat, so Snorlax comes to down to a PP and Struggle war.

 

[Envoy]

I am skipping Master Trainers for now. I know I’m nowhere near ready for them. I’m currently grinding for levels and exp. Got a Chansey chain going in Cerulean Cave. Although, looking at my Pokédex, I’m seriously close to completing a living Dex. I might just do that real quick first.

 

[Sakuraa]

I beat Let's Go Eevee already and I'm halfway through Let's Go Pikachu. I just got to Fuchsia City with my underleveled af team of Pikachu, Blastoise, Charizard, Marowak, Tarous, and soon to be obtained Syther. The thing is apparently super rare, so I guess I'll be look for a while.

Riding on Charizard is SO F*CKING AWESOME tho