The Official Travelog + Let's Play Thread

[TeaWest]

I've been playing Pokemon Y lately. Just got my 4th badge last night, so I haven't been updating here as much as I usually have. Will try to post a little more on my progress. I just entered the power plant.

Current Team:
McGonagall (Braixen) - lvl 36
Caladbolg (Doublade) - lvl 35
Rex (Gogoat) - lvl 35
Hrimfaxi - (Shellder) - lvl 35 - Also a shiny, I hooked it from chain fishing
Raptor (Gabite) - lvl 31
Hawk Hana (Hawlucha) - lvl 34

 

[CynthiaLover]

Started another Platinum run (HeartGold is among the missing again, largely because I've been spending time cleaning my apartment for my monthly inspection, so things sometimes get misplaced in the process). I haven't gotten very far, only just after getting my first batch of Poke Balls. I would be farther, but I forgot to recharge my DS Lite after playing Megaman Battle Chip Challenge for a while, so I ran out of juice (it's not a bad game, mind, and I'm up to the Class X tournament, though I still need some better chips). But, for the most part, I got my starter (Chimchar), beat Barry, caught a bunch of trade fodder Bidoofs so I can trade between my other versions for various IDs so I can... um... increase my odds at winning the ID Lotto, as well as bought some more Poke Balls for regular catches. Plan to add a Starly to the ranks shortly, as, even though it's rather redundant when paired up with the Chimchar line, Staraptor is the best Flyer in the game. But, overall, off to a good start. I'll update on a later date when I have more newsworthy stuff to report.

 

[yudgefudge]

Well, I'm beginning a Y playthrough.
Here's my current Emerald Playthrough
Here's the planned team:

 

[TeaWest]

Beat the 6th gym over the weekend in Pokemon Y. The time between getting the 5th and 6th badge was really quick. Enjoying my time so far, though I have a few things that I don't like about the game. Now traveling to the next town, training up my party along the way, which I finally have all the members to. Evolved both Braixen and Shellder in the meantime as well!

McGonagall (Delphox) - lvl 42
Caladbolg (Doublade) - lvl 39
Rex (Gogoat) - lvl 42
Hrimfaxi - (shiny Cloyster) - lvl 41
Raptor (Gabite) - lvl 42
Hawk Hana (Hawlucha) - lvl 40

 

[Felly]

Managed to beat Clair in HeartGold, and now I've made it all the way to the Elite Four. I did a little research on Bulbapedia, and it looked like my team was at a pretty solid place for challenging, mid 30s with a couple of low 40s. Not the most ideal team, but I didn't feel like I needed to do any grinding before I went to challenge. Turns out I was right up until I battled Bruno, who I lost to. I beat Will with minimal difficulties, and Koga was awfully annoying with his Muk's Minimizing for max evasion and the Toxic spam (and his Crobat's Double Teaming) but I was able to beat him thankfully. I saved after the Koga battle, so I'll be able to rechallenge Bruno without having to go through the other two again.

 

[Pyrax]

Found a copy of Y for very cheap. I've been looking for a game to casually play to avoid getting burnt out by Uni work, so I bought it. Figured might as well give Gen VI another chance.

Picked up a Froakie. I already have a team in mind:

Spoiler: team

Greninja
Gogoat
Golurk
Tyrantrum
Toxicroak
Ampharos

 

[Felly]

Made it all the way through Kanto in my HG playthrough that I've been chatting about here. I'm preparing to challenge Red at the top of Mt. Silver, but I have one Pokemon that's in the high 40s, two that are at level 50, and three in the mid-50s, so I'm nowhere near ready yet. I'm hoping to get my Pokemon to their mid-60s before I attempt to challenge for the first time, but that's gonna be a ways away. Training a little bit outside of Mt. Silver now (I already went to the top before I flew away to go train more because I knew I wasn't ready for it), and once I get all of my Pokemon to level 50, I plan on challenging the Elite Four + Champion again to do some more training. Hoping by then I'll be ready to challenge Red, but we'll see when the time comes.

 

[CynthiaLover]

Okay, started my rerun through X today. Started out with a female Fennekin with a Timid nature (yeah, talk about lucky), naming her Jessica (after Dragon Quest 8's lead sorceress). I caught a bunch of Com Mons so I could trade them over for the eggs I had prepared for this run. However... I blundered a bit. I got one of the eggs mixed up with another on only to realize my mistake when it hatched. It was a Piplup egg with the egg moves Agility and Icy Wind. It must've been from a Dream World breedject that I got in a Wonder Trade some time ago and decided to mess with it, since it wasn't in a regular Poke Ball. I decided, at least for the time being, to keep it, since I was needing a Water Mon, though I had already planned on catching a Poliwhirl for that task. We'll see how it fares, as having a Steel-type would offset any Fairy weaknesses I would have. I did find the correct egg a short time later and hatched it, though I now have four hatched Mons instead of three like originally planned. And no PC box yet, either. Oh, well.

So, now my team consists of Fennekin (Jessica), Foongus (Shiitake), Piplup (Jetstream), Murkrow (Duskwing), and Noibat (Nightwave), with a Bunnelby for filler (and to abuse Pickup for a bit, since it's already netted me some good stuff by this point). I wasted a good hour or so getting all of them (bar Bunnelby) up to three hearts in affection so I can boost the EXP gains and spent a bit of time grinding until everyone (again, bar Bunnelby) was at least Level 6. Then I proceeded with the game. Caught everything I could in Santalune Forest, taking advantage of Shauna's free healing to grind a bit more (since you don't get the EXP Share until after Gym 1), and made my way to Santalune City. After getting the Roller Skates, I beat up all the trainers on the nearby route and was just about to grind a bit more when my battery started to die, so that ended today's campaign. At the moment, everyone is at or around Level 11 except Fennekin and Bunnelby, who are 15 and 3, respectively. I'll start recharging it tomorrow morning, as I'm always up at 7 AM for my "morning routine" (that Day Light Savings makes extremely painful... I want my extra hour of sleep...), so I can just do it then when I'm finished with my routine. Until then.

 

[Tortoiseshel]

I finally got my GameCube working and am now playing XD: Gale of Darkness! I'm planning on raising a ribbon master (a Banette, of course ), but first I'm trying to get a shiny starter Eevee. I'm on soft reset number twenty, let's see how many tries it takes me, or if I just get tired of resetting over and over.

 

[CynthiaLover]

I guess I should update everyone on my Platinum rerun, since I haven't done so in a while.

Well, to start things off, I'm currently in Pastoria City, but I'm spending some time grinding up certain Mons in order to get their evolved forms' dex data. They are: Tangela, Yanma, and Lickitongue. I was also grinding my new Croagunk into a Toxicroak (as well as get him on-par with the rest of the team atm). That croaker took a lot to catch. Not only did I have to do the Great Marsh a total of three times (not including soft resets) in order to get him, but I had to catch several, as they had bad natures. The ones that did have ideal natures had the Anticipation ability, and since the Ability Capsule isn't a thing in Gen 4, I had to really work for my favorite Poison-type. In the end, I settled for one with a Rash nature and Dry Skin, since I was getting sick of the Great Marsh (and I still don't have everything in it, yet, as Carnivine and Skorpi were not in today's rotation, so I have to go back again another day).

Anyway, I succeeded in getting Junko the Croagunk to evolve into a Toxicroak (though I held him back one level to learn Poison Jab before evolving), joining the ranks of Hotshot the Infernape, Aerrow the Staraptor, Zephyr the Gliscor, and Shelly the West Sea Gastrodon. Still looking into a sixth member, particularly one that'll do well against Psychic-types, as two of my team are weak to them and three have low Special Defense (though, technically, Shelly could take them on, as she has Hidden Power Bug, as well as decent Special Defense). For now, I'm trying to get the aforementioned Mons at the top of the post evolved for dex data before I challenge Crasher Wake. I've already succeeded in getting Tangela to evolve a short time ago, now I'm working on Yanma, as she's Level 30, so she's only a few levels away from learning Ancient Power. Lickitongue will be the harder one, as he's only Level 20, and he doesn't learn Rollout until Level 33, so he'll take a while. Fortunately, I managed to snag two Lucky Eggs from wild Chansey via Thief, so that'll speed things up a bit.

And that's all that I've been doing today in my Platinum run. Tune in next time to see how I fair against Crasher Wake and if I get my coveted dex data.

 

[CynthiaLover]

Forgive the double post, as I've finished Platinum and are now working on another run through White 2, so it's time for an update.

Started out with a Tepig that I named Nitro, who is now a Pignite. I caught a Riolu (now Lucario) and Lillipup in Flossey Ranch named Noble and Chance (the former is my go-to name for Lucarios, while the latter is based off of my family's late cairn terrier, Chance). I'm not evolving Chance, as he has Pickup, so I want to exploit it as much as possible. Also, because I was (at first) having trouble catching a Riolu, I booted up the Dream Radar and caught a bunch of Mons... except Riolu (figures). Though I did add a Drifloon I caught in the Dream Radar to my team, at least for now, eventually naming her Merlin (after the Seven Deadly Sins character, who is also my favorite character in the series) once I got access to the Name Rater later on. Obviously, I finally found a Riolu, but wasn't able to raise him up fast enough to learn Force Palm for Cheren's Gym Battle, but Nitro managed to solo him anyway with liberal use of Flame Charge.

Anyway, made my way to Vertibank City, catching everything I could to fill out the Habitat function of the Pokedex. Did the same thing in the Vertibank Complex, adding a Koffing named Kaboom to my team, at least for now, and cleaned out all the Trainers. Battled and utterly creamed Roxie with Noble (who had just evolved prior to the Gym Battle) and Nitro, both scoring critical hits that OHKOed both of her Mons. Did the PokeStar Studio "tutorial"... and ended up wasting about two days there, getting all the movies I could at the time (all good endings, anyway). God damn, I have too much fun making those mock movies, though the RNG gods do tend to mess with me. And the items you get for completing them are nice. I'm now overflowing with tons of items that I may never need to buy any healing items ever again.

Moving on, took care of the rebooted Team Plasma and made it to Castellia City. Took care of the Plasma goons in the sewers, catching everything I could, and will head back to the sewers to catch the other Mons in the underground tunnels... after I did some more PokeStar movies. Got three Strange Endings with Noble (two from Giant Woman and one from Full Metal Cop), giving him that star animation (which also helped boost my gross totals in Giant Woman 2 and Full Metal Cop 1, the former of which got over 700 million as a result). As a result, I now have every fan up to the Plasma Grunts (which I think it all of them), along with having access to every movie that I can get until post-game (granted, I haven't done every available movie yet, as my battery started to die after completing the Strange Ending in Full Metal Cop 1, but I'll get there soon enough). Do note that I will continue with the story, battle Burgh, and resume my catching quest in the underground tunnels, as I still need to go in there, but I have to take a break and let my DS Lite recharge first. My party is as followed:

Nitro (Pignite, male) Lv24
Noble (Lucario, male) Lv21
Merlin (Drifloon, female) Lv20
Kaboom (Koffing, female) Lv20
Chance (Lillipup, male) Lv15

I'll be pruning teammates and changing things around as time goes on, as I know this team is far from balanced, but this'll do for a start. Until next time.

 

[CynthiaLover]

Forgive the now triple post, but I figured I should update how my Ultra Sun run is doing. I'll try to keep it short.

Well, starting off from where I left off, I battled Olivia and won, ending the battle with a duel between Lycanrocs (my Dusk vs. her Midnight), with Silver Fang just barely holding on after getting hit by her Lycanroc's Z-Move, allowing him to deliver the KO punch. After that I took care of all the side-quests, such as the Hypno crime, Bewear in the mall, and Ditto Five. Moved onto Aether Paradise and took care of the mystery Mon (I know what it is, I'm just calling it that for the story's purposes) before battle Hau on the next island, winning pretty easily. Took care of all the events that followed, including going to the optional garbage facility before heading to the Observatory for my next Trial. Prior to that, I spent time hunting for Mon, and god dammit, I had a really hard time getting Beldum. Had to take a gamble and let Hawkeye the Talonflame burn it in order to increase my odds, which, after much trial and error (mostly error), I got one. But this wouldn't be the last gambit Hawkeye would do today. During the Electric Trial I wasn't getting very far with Aerrow the Decidueye, and since none of my Mons resisted Electric(other than Aerrow), I took a roll of the dice and sent out Hawkeye to burn the Totem and its Skarmory ally, which ultimately worked. From there I just had to bide my time, using a combo of Flame Charge and Roost to speed up Hawkeye and heal him (while also temporarily losing his Electric weakness in the process). I effectively cheesed the Totem and its allies, only needing to switch once Hawkeye got hit by two Charms from Dedenne, but by that point the Totem was done, thereby allowing Toxie the A-Muk to clean things up (ironically, considering what Muk is). So, I got my next Z-Crystal (along with the Steel one earlier) before heading back to return the Professor's... I mean the Masked Royal's mask to Kukuki, though I took a brief detour to the Gracedea clothing shop to buy the Kommo-o top, since I had enough cash to buy it with about 80,000 leftover. I'll be continuing tomorrow. My team is as followed:

Aerrow the Decidueye
Silver Fang the Dusk Lyncanroc
Toxie the Alolan Muk
Nightwave the Noibat
Starfire the Starmie
Hawkeye the Talonflame

 

[Puddle]

I've just started playing Pokemon Ranger for the first time. It's a second-hand copy that I've had for years, but never got around to playing. I decided it was about time I played through it so I can find out if there's still a Manaphy egg on it or not. The fact that the last save file wasn't very far into the game makes me hopeful that the previous owner might never have completed it. I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much, though, so that I won't end up too disappointed if the egg has indeed gone.

Anyway, I like the game so far, so even if there's no Manaphy egg I will have had a good time all the same.

 

[PinkThunder]

I started played pokemon Black yesterday,I never play this game before and I hear that are a pretty good game,so I release my starter cause I don't like,(this 3 options are horrible for me xd) and catch a Lillipup I named her Kara like my dog soooo it's much cute for me played this game with my "pet" Bianca background story it's interesting and the villain team has a god point,I hope game freak worked in this story I give a freak monkey (That's my new HM slave xd) and win the first gym leader for now that's my team:

Kara/Lillipup: Lvl 15
Slave/Pansear: lvl 12

 

[EmpoleonProd]

It's been like a year but I've picked back up my playthrough of Emerald as Arcade Star Dahlia from the Gen 4 games. After using some RNG manipulation to get the right Torchic and Lotad I wanted as far as Ability/IVs go, I did some trading and used a glitch to receive a Medicham, Togetic, and Ditto, and bred myself the Meditite and Togepi I need with the proper Natures I need for my goal of conquering the Battle Frontier. I also used my Ruby and Sapphire to trade some TMs over for my team. I'm just now heading out of Mauville City and towards Fallarbor Town, my team is as follows:

1. Combusken, Level 30
Nature: Naive
Ability: Blaze
Moveset:
-Flamethrower
-Double Kick
-Peck
-Scratch

2. Ludicolo, Level 22
Nature: Modest
Ability: Swift Swim
Moveset:
-Water Pulse
-Giga Drain
-Ice Beam
-Rain Dance

3. Togepi, Level 23
Nature: Modest
Ability: Serene Grace
Moveset:
-Metronome
-Yawn
-Sweet Kiss
-Growl

4. Meditite, Level 5, Exp. Share
Nature: Jolly
Ability: Pure Power
Moveset:
-Brick Break
-Shadow Ball
-Strength
-Double Team

I'm also going to be utilizing a Breloom and Zigzagoon to cover all the HMs up until I need Dive and Waterfall, which I'll get a Wailmer for. Strength will stay on Meditite until I get to the Battle Frontier and can tutor Body Slam onto it. I still need to catch a Duskull to evolve into a Dusclops, and use a glitch to get a Zapdos, which will probably happen just before the Pokemon League.

 

[Puddle]

I've just started replaying Let's Go Pikachu so I can catch a Ponyta, transfer it to Sword and breed it to get a Galarian variant for my team before The Crown Tundra comes out. I have Shield as well, but since I'll be playing Sword a lot next week I thought it would be more fun to get a Ponyta from Let's Go, for some variety. If I'd kept my Let's Go and Shield save files I could have caught a Ponyta in minutes, but I have a bad habit of deleting old save files once I get bored with them, so I'm having to start over!

 

[PrimalIvysaur]

Currently going through HG, cleaning up the Kanto gym leaders as I type this. Kanto is infinitely more fun to play in Gen 4 just because they actually bothered to make the leaders' teams a threat in terms of levels.

Final team is:

 

[CynthiaLover]

So, at a Slugma's pace, I started another Platinum run. I was actually planning to do a White run but I can't find my spare White version (and I won't reset my main White version due to all the memories, power-packed team, and complete dex), so I just picked up an unused Platinum and reset it. As I said, I've been going at a Slugma's pace in it, as the elections (along with everything else that happened last week) zapped me of all my drive, so I'm not very far in it. I'm on my way to Oreburgh City, having defeated my rival, Barry, and caught everything I can at this point. And, to my utter shock and joy, I've already gotten my Mons infected with Pokerus. I can thank the Abra I caught for it. I've infected my four current Mons and another one, which is now in the box so I can call upon the Pokerus for later teammates. My current team is as followed:

Monferno (Hotshot, male, 14)
Starly (Aero, male, 10)
Zubat (Nightfang, male, 4)
Abra (PsyClone, male, 4)

Nightfang and PsyClone are sort of temp members. I want to get Nightfang to a Crobat before boxing him while I'm experimenting with PsyClone to see if I want to keep him full-term or not. Plus, I've decided that I'm going to try new Mons that I've never or haven't used much before for this run instead of my usual standby Mons (with the exception of Staraptor, as I need a flyer, and it is the best Flying-type in Sinnoh). So, hopefully, I can start covering some ground now that all the problems that were dragging me down last week are said and done with. Tune in next time to find out.

 

[Puddle]

I'm about to start a new playthrough of Sword. This is something I was planning on doing anyway, but I just realized that today is the first anniversary of SwSh, so the timing couldn't be better!

I'll be choosing Sobble as always, but this time I'm also going to add a Rowlet and Galarian Ponyta to my team (as soon as I reach the Wild Area Nursery and can breed from the ones I transferred in). This, coupled with the fact that both DLC expansions are now out, should make this playthrough feel different to the ones I've done before. I'm also thinking of spicing up the game with some self-imposed restrictions, such as not using any healing items.

 

[CynthiaLover]

I finally picked up my previous Platinum run again today. I don't know why I let it sit there for so long, though I guess it was because of me getting totally zapped and drained from the elections, as it threw off my gaming rhythm. Anyway, enough of that, on with the show.

I had made it to Eterna City. After doing the story events (meeting Barry, seeing Cyrus, meeting Cynthia), I challenged the Eterna Gym. Total cakewalk, as Hotshot the Monferno, Aero the Staravia, and PsyClone the Alakazam pretty much steamrolled Gardenia and her Gym trainers. Next up was the battle with Team Galactic and especially Jupiter. The grunts, no problem. Jupiter was slightly annoying but nonetheless taken care of. My original strategy was to have PsyClone use Miracle Eye to eliminate Skuntank's Dark typing so its Poison typing would be vulnerable to his Psychic attacks. But, I ended up just using Aero to take it out (using Pluck helped, as snatching Skuntank's Sitrus Berry before it could use it to heal Aero was a good idea).

After that I got the egg from Cynthia and have already hatched the Togepi in it before boxing it. I also boxed PsyClone and the recently evolved Nightfang the Crobat, as I'm now working on getting both a Buneary and Chingling to their respective evolved forms. Since both evolve via Friendship (and in Chingling's case, at night), I've got my work cut out for me (especially Buneary, as it has a whopping Happiness rating of 0 when first caught). I caught them both in Luxury Balls that I traded over as well as two Soothe Bells (the first one I traded over while the second one is from Cheryl) in hopes of speeding up the process. Along the way I caught several other Mons for dex data, along with evolving one of them right away (Nosepass, since it evolves via Level Up in Mt. Coronet), so I managed to get a lot of dex data within a short timeframe. As of now, I'm in the Old Chateau, grinding on Gastly for easy EXP, as they can't touch Buneary (outside of Curse) who also has Foresight to make her Normal/Fighting moves work on them, and Chingling can one-shot them with Confusion, in hopes of speeding up the process. I also need to catch Rotom while I'm in the Old Chateau, since you can't find it or catch it anywhere else, but I won't be able to until 8 PM tonight (it'll also give me the chance to find Cleffa and Hoothoot, since they're the last Mons I need for my dex in the general area). I also need to get the bike but I want to catch Rotom first, as once you get the bike that kid near Eterna City's entrance won't let you pass until you go down Cycling Road at least once, which is a royal pain. So, while I wait until then I'm letting my DS Lite recharge. My team is as followed:

Monferno (Hotshot, male, Lv28)
Staravia (Aero, male, Lv25)
Buneary (Cottontail, female, Lv26)
Chingling (Wind Ling, male, Lv18)