Pokemon Diamond - Obtained the Icicle Gym Badge

I have continued to play this game, on and off, for the past couple weeks. I'm really starting to have bouts of loving and hating the game now. Going through areas often feels like a grind - the cave on Iron island definitely felt that way. The game can move very slowly, especially with battle animations and switching Pokemon and everything like that. This can make the game a drudgery. And yet, the exploration of new areas and encountering new Pokemons seems great. So... I don't know. It held my attention long enough to spend an entire night going through the snowy area to reach the town at the end, which was good.

I still feel that my Pokemon are a bit underleveled. The Canalave gym didn't cause me much trouble, and the Snowpoint City one was only a little difficult (and had one of the coolest puzzles in it). I guess as long as I'm winning, it doesn't really matter.

I also guess I'm near the end of the game's story, since there aren't any many places on the map that I haven't visited. This is good, as I'm actually kind of looking forward to all the stuff that opens up when you beat the elite four at the end. People on forums I visit have been talking about raising different pokemon teams for different battle types and I think that sounds like a hoot. I also want to try to capture every Pokemon in the Sinnoh Pokedex, so this game definitely still has pull for me.

Pokemon Diamond - Surfing around

So I've been back to Pokemon for most of this week. The gradual pace of the game makes it difficult to decide when to write about it. Beating the Hearthome gym leader seems like an obvious spot, but I didn't really get much further then. It is only now, once I have been using the Surf technique and exploring new areas that I feel I've really kind of gotten somewhere - even though I haven't.

Rereading the previous paragraph, it seems to make little sense. The point I want to get across is that there don't seem to be major milestones in Pokemon. Beating the gym leaders are one of the few times that happens. But you always get a new technique after beating them so you open up more areas to explore - it is almost like Super Metroid in that aspect. The game is actually fairly linear in that you are supposed to progress from one town to another. It doesn't feel linear because each town opens up more stuff to do: try the global trade station, raise and breed pokemon in the daycare, explore the underground, so that as you get to each new area it seems like the game is opening up exponentially.

The battle with the Hearthome gym leader was my toughest so far. I ended it with only one of my six Pokemon left alive. This is despite knowing that all her Pokemon were weak to Dark attacks. I think, for the first time in the game, I was actually a bit underleveled. I've been concentrating on raising a core of 6-8 pokemon and so I guess my Pokemon are a few levels under where they could be if I was only worrying about 4-6. Anyway, the battle was tense, I was forced to use many potions and finally Mercury, my Vespiqueen, stood as the sole survivor.

And the surf technique is totally awesome. It opens up just a ton more areas.

Pokemon Diamond - Obtained four gym badges

For the first time in Pokemon, I am stuck. It isn't that I don't have things to do. I could explore the underground some more and get more interesting items like evolution stones. I could work on leveling up and evolving my pokemon. I could try to breed pokemon with interesting attacks. All these I can I do. What I cannot seem to figure out how to do is advance the story.

I like that, in Hearthome city, you can't immediately battle the trainer there. It is a nice way to set up for later. Also, this then exposes two possible paths to take. I ended up taking the one that heads North and thus encountered Veilstone city first. This was great because it allowed me to defeat the gym leader and use the Fly HM. Fly is equivalent to the Return spell in the Dragon Quest (Dragon Warrior) games. You can return to any town you have been to before. This makes doing things like checking the global trade station, picking berries you planted, and retrieving Pokemon in the day care much easier. It really seems like the designers went out of their way to take any tedium out of this game and just let the player do what he or she wants. The only thing left that sometimes annoys me is random encounters, but I haven't tried using the item that decreases them.

So I then headed to Pastoria city. I played around in the Safari zone. It is a neat concept - a new way to capture Pokemon. It can also be a bit frustrating if you are trying to catch the pokemon that are unique to it. When battling pokemon in the wild, you can get near assurance that you will be able to capture it. Since, in the Safari zone, there is no way to weaken or affect their status. All you can do is throw things at them. That makes them more likely to be caught, but also more likely to run away. Nevertheless, I caught just about all of the pokemon unique to the Safari zone (I'll get you some day, Azurill!)

Anyway, after defeating the Pastoria gym leader, I am stuck. I am sure I have to make use of the new Defog technique. I am also pretty sure I have to get past the Psyducks. But I cannot figure out how. It looks like I may have to consult an FAQ.

Pokemon Diamond - Reached Moo Moo Milk Cafe

I haven't been updated in a while, but it isn't that I haven't been playing. I haven't had a lot of time, but I've still put about an hour or two into Pokemon Diamond most days. I just haven't passed any major milestones. Each time I play, I capture some Pokemon I don't have or I explore through a side cave and get a TM. So it just doesn't seem right to update.

I like that, since acquiring the bike, there are a ton of new places I can go. I had assumed that the game would continue its relative linearity and I would just find and fight the third gym boss in Hearthome. To my surprise (and delight) after exploring the city, you don't fight the trainer there yet and get to explore quite a bit more and see many more towns. I've been to like three different places and haven't even found a gym yet.

Granted, I also haven't found anything incredibly interesting. Just some new Pokemon and a few new items. Oh, and the day care is pretty cool. Still, I feel like I'm exploring which I love. And since Pokemon requires no grinding, I just get to explore and fight and it all feels natural and fun. There's just a lot to recommend to this game. I can go out and capture Pokemon I don't have (and give them clever names). Or I can go and level up my Pokemon to find new abilities. Or I can tool around the underground looking for new items. And I just get more options as the game progresses. I'm very impressed by this game.

Pokemon Diamon - Hearthome City

Okay, so I totally don't get contests. I mean, I don't quite get the underground either, but at least I have an idea of what I can do and get there and what are strategies for getting the things. The contests just baffle me. I mean, the dancing one is just a rhythm game, so that's easy. The beauty contest where you have to dress up your Pokemon, I just have no idea about. I know it has something to do with the Pokemon's innate attributes and eating Poffin, and what accesories you put on it, but I'm fairly clueless. As for the acting competition, I just can't seem to figure out any strategy for doing particularly well. Maybe I just have to look at the movesets more.

Pokemon Diamond - Explored Cave North of Oreburgh

My Pokemon gaming session last night was rather frustrating. Not only has no one taken me up on my offer to trade my Psyduck for a female Combee, but I also spent quite a lot of time wandering through a dark cave. I finally came upon some other trainers to fight and then a girl who I had to escort out back through the cave. Once I finally finish navigating the dark cave, what do I get? A word of thanks.

That's it. No super special item or Pokemon or anything tangible, just a digital character thanking me for getting her out of there. I'm all for philathropy in real life as a real person is getting a tangible benefit from it? In video games, it is all about me. She better appear later and give me something special.

Pokemon Diamond - Riding Around on the Bicycle

So this game has totally hooked me. At first, I couldn't really see what all the hype was about, but after a week in, it totally has me. A large part of the reason is its open endedness. I haven't been at all in a hurry to move on to the next city and get the next badge or item. Instead, I've just been leisurely taking my time. I'm enjoying catching Pokemon and trying to get all the Pokemon I've encountered. I enjoy attempting to get them to evolve and all the hoops required in that. I enjoy trading them around. I feel like my Animal Crossing comparison is more and more apt (though my friend Rob prefers a Grand Theft Auto III comparison).

One thing I have taken advantage of is the apparent Japanese desire for Pokemon with English names. I first read about this phenomenon here. In the Japanese version of the game, you can only name Pokemon using Japanese characters. Likewise, in the English version you can only use English characters. However, you can trade Pokemon across different language versions of the game and they keep their name in its original language. English names are apparently cool in Japan and so Japanese players are trading hard to get Pokemon for very common ones with English names. I have done my part in this phenomenon by trading two low-level Pokemon named "Coca-Cola" and "McDonalds" for the other starter Pokemon. I figured, what could be cooler English name than internationally recognized American corporate brands?

I am feeling pumped this morning because last night I participated in my first battle against another person and won it. I figured that there would be all sorts of new strategies and ideas needed when battling against real people (much like there is a world of difference between fighting the computer and fighting a person in a first person shooter). However, my knowledge of Pokemon strengths and weaknesses and anticipation of my opponents' moves served me well and I triumphed despite the average level of his Pokemon being higher than mine.

The sign that I am playing this game too much? Last night I had a dream that my dog was a psychic Pokemon.

Pokemon Diamond - Got the second badge

While this game still doesn't blow me away, I find myself becoming more and more attached to it. Yes, I think I have the fever that wants to catch all the possible Pokemon. This I will attempt to do. It is really kind of insidious how this game worms itself into you. I'm starting to memorize all the strengths and weaknesses and decide on which Pokemon are best to battle with.

I tried out the underground for the first time and it seems an interesting concept. It is almost a completely separate game from the normal Pokemon world. You search for treasure, avoid traps, and set up a secret base. You can also interact with other players through local Wi-Fi. So far, it seems kind of semi-formed. There is a good amount of stuff there, but there don't necessarily seem to be adequate rewards for doing it. I haven't tried everything yet, so I'll see.

I also played around with the global trade station for the first time. You basically put up your Pokemon for trade and anyone in the world that wants your Pokemon and has what you want can pull the trigger. It seems like a great idea. Right now, I am testing out the theory proposed that Japanese players will do anything for Pokemon with English names so I uploaded a relatively weak one asking for one of the starter Pokemon.

Needless to say, I will rarely run out of stuff to do in this game. Because, by the way, I advanced the story a bit by acquiring the second gym badge.

Pokemon Diamond - Got the first badge

Before yesterday, I had never played a Pokemon game in my life.

I had seen the cartoon a few times. I had read countless articles mentioning the games and several positive reviews. I had played a demo of a spinoff, Pokemon Snap, at a kiosk in some store. I had spent the good portion of a train ride between Providence and Philadelphia overhearing a kid playing on of the original games on his Game Boy. Still, for the more than 10 years that Pokemon games have been in existence, I have never touched on until yesterday.

I'm not sure why. Just about every mention of them talks about how, even though they are built for kids, the battle system in them has a significant amount of strategy. I have heard of plenty of people my age and older that have greatly enjoyed the game. I often get obsessed over collecting everything in a game or doing everything to 100% and when I remarked on this to a friend once, he expressed incredulosity that I had not yet played Pokemon. So yeah, every piece of available evidence I had told me that they were good games and that I would enjoy them. With their first release on the DS being imminent and with a message board I frequent hyping it up and getting me excited, I took the plunge and bought the new pokemon the day of release and played it for about five hours.

It's pretty good.

It doesn't blow me away. It is kind of simple, but I think that it revels in its simplicity. You just walk around, talk to people, and encounter random pokemon in the wild. The battles in the game rarely get much more complicated than rock/paper/scissors. I really think the enjoyment of this game comes in what you put into it. You can get really into customizing the best battle team ever. You can craft Pokemon into fighting machines by choosing their attacks appropriately and giving them items and then assemble a team of six of them to take on all comers. You can attempt to collect them all. You can stalk through areas, looking for elusive rarer pokemon. You can jump through all the hoops required to get the rarest ones. I think it is in these sorts of things where the game really comes into its own.

In fact the game seems to pride itself on having a ton to do. While the ostensible goal is to get your Pokemon to beat up all the other major trainers' Pokemon, you can do things like enter fashion contests, explore the underworld, and really just make what you want of it. In a lot of ways, this series is almost aspiring to be Animal Crossing.

Also, in this version, you can finally use the internet to battle with your friends and trade with anyone.

So I'm enjoying this game, but it isn't blowing me away. It is totally hitting the obsessive part of me, and I can see myself attempting to "Catch 'em all".