Board 8 > Exdeath Plays Every Game in the GotD 2020 Contest

(+) Yeah! (+)

Thanks for the birthday wishes, guys.

ZenOfThunder posted...

Happy 25th birthday ExDeath!! By the time you're done with this topic I'll be wishing you a happy 30th birthday.

Yes, I look forward to it. "Five years well spent," I'll say.

LinkMarioSamus posted...

Wait you're YOUNGER than me? I'm also 25.

I like to think you're surprised at this because I seem so wise and mature, but I guess it's more because you're used to being the baby of board 8, right?

---

The gym leader in Mahogany Town was an older man named Pryce, and he had been raising Pokmon for decades. It was intimidating - in all those years, he must have learned far more about Pokmon than Dylan could hope to equal. Dylan still won easily. Romeo's super-effective Fire Blast was just strong enough to take down Pryce's Piloswine in one hit, and Sawyer easily dealt with his Dewgong.

There were only two possible explanations: either Pryce had gone easy on him or Dylan was extremely talented. He had just started with Pokmon two weeks ago! There were some things that seemed so obvious but almost no one else would do: carrying a full team of six, for example, or using a variety of types. In either case, it was a nice feeling to be good at something.

With his new Gym badge and the whirlpool HM Lance had gifted to him, he could finally explore the whirl islands. He caught a Horsea there and named it Leviathan. He also returned to the Lake of Rage for a Flaafy, which he named Thor.

Next he flew back home. He showed Professor Elm the Togepi he had hatched all that time ago, and Elm gave him an item that prevented Pokmon from evolving in return. That didn't sound useful, but he was glad Elm was happy. Then he went to see his mom. They spent a long time talking about Dylan's adventures, Team Rocket, and what had gone on back home while he was gone. His mother cooked for him. She must have missed him, because she made Tauros meat meidum rare, just how he liked it. This made a wonderful change of base from Magikarp seared with fire blast. He spent the night in his room, playing Wii for a while and then lying in bed looking through his notebook. He wrote notes and drew doodles about the Slowpoke Well, the Burnt Tower, and the Rocket Base. He wanted to write something - a poem maybe - that captured the feelings of those places, but he was afraid it would just sound silly. He wrote the words "broken dreams" in the margin of one page.

It was the happiest night he'd spent in a long time. He thought about staying, at least for a little while. Idly, he turned on the radio with his Pokgear, and heard Team Rocket's transmission from the radio tower, which they had taken over. It was calling out to their old leader. There was something sad about that, but someone needed to stop them, and he decided it would be him. He went downstairs, said goodbye to his mom, and flew to Goldenrod city. He withdrew Teddy the Bayleef from the PC. He wanted to train it and take it to the Pokmon League, so that its original trainer would go the distance at least through his Pokmon.

In the underground, a Rocket Grunt was handing out uniforms, and mistook Dylan for a new recruit. Dylan went along with it for a disguise, but decided to wear his regular clothes underneath the costume. That was a little uncomfortable, but it turned out to be a good decision because as soon as entered the radio tower, Morris showed up, ranted as usual about weakness, and then tore Dylan's Rocket Uniform off him.

He made his way up the radio tower, back into the underground to rescue the CEO of the radio company in exchange for a keycard, and back up again. He fought that impersonation specialist Rocket admin, who only used Koffing and its evolved form, and Morris showed up to challenge him. It wasn't too tough. His Golbat was slower than Sawyer and fainted before it could try any confusion tactics, his Sneasel fell to one Fire Blast, and Feraligatr lost to confusion from Ivan followed by Shadow Balls from Sawyer. In general, his tactics here were to switch to Sawyer and KO with Shadow Ball whenever things seemed tricky. He focused on leveling up Leviathan until it finally evolved to Seadra. He still had a short climb upward to go.

Pokedex: 135 seen/68 caught

Team:
Teddy (Bayleef) lv. 20
Romeo (Quilava) lv. 31
Isis (Nidoqueen) lv. 29
Ivan (Umbreon) lv. 29
Sawyer (Gengar) lv. 34
Leviathan (Seadra) lv. 32

---

I don't even.

---

Happy belated

God I am old

---

Finished my Galaxy 2 replay. I did a challenge run to make it more interesting, and it worked pretty well. I'll wait until it's time to share the full story though.

---

Up to Blackthorn City now. I feel like not a lot has happened, so I'll wait until tomorrow to post a longer update.

---

The man leading the new Team Rocket was named Archer. He used a fire-dog called Houndour and its evolved form, both of which made easy prey for Leviathan's Surf. Once defeated, he agreed to disband Team Rocket for a second time. Giovanni never appeared. It was impossible to tell if he had even heard the message. It made Dylan a little sad. Reviving Team Rocket was someone's dream. A lot of them were doing it out of love for their old leader, or so it seemed. But it had to be done.

He took some time to catch Pokmon he had missed before, such as Sentret, Hoppip, and Mareep, and explored some of the areas that his new HMs had opened up, particularly the extended Ruins of Alph, where he found a Pokmon named Natu. When he caught it, the Pokdex announced that it was flying-psychic, and his heart lept for joy. He named it Cassandra.

There was only one gym left in Johto, east of Mahogony Town. To get there he had to travel through a cold cave called Ice Path, which required a lot of skating on the slippery surface of the ice. He fell over a few times. The gym in Blackthorn City just beyond used dragon types, who were weak to the ice types native to the Path, which made the choice of location seem a little strange. The trainers mostly used Dragonair, which Sawyer could outspeed and one-shot, and Seadra, which was a poor match for Teddy, who evolved partway through the gym. The leader, Clair, made a good challenge. Her Dragonair knew lots of different elemental attacks and she followed up with an extremely powerful Kingdra packing Hydro Pump and Dragon Pulse. In the end, Gengar turned out to be even stronger. Clair refused to admit defeat and insisted that Dylan head into the dragon cave past town, where he caught a rare Dratini, which was a struggle. It was too low level to attack with any of his Pokmon, so he had to poison it, but its ability shed skin repeatedly cured it. He called it Smaug.

The cave's elder asked him a few questions about how he felt toward Pokmon, and seemed pleased with his answers. It was this guy who finally convinced Clair to hand over the last badge, but she apologized and gave Dylan a TM for Dragon Pulse. He liked her.

Professor Elm called him and said he'd received something interesting. It turned out to be a Master Ball, which was guaranteed to catch any Pokmon. Dylan was eager to try it out and tracked down Raikou, which he immediately threw the Master Ball at and caught. He had already used Thor and felt that the only sufficiently impressive name left for it was Deus. It had weak moves.

There were five Kimono Girls in Ecruteak City. He had encountered them in various places as he traveled. They called him now and challenged him to a gauntlet of battles, but not before embarrassing Morris by beating him easily. They used high-level Eevee evolutions. The Jolteon and Umbreon were especially tenacious. Dylan had to use a lot of items to get by. Once he had won, the girls asked him to come up to the local Bell Tower. He felt a little nervous about going to meet a group of girls on his own. It turned out they had some kind of mystical power and wanted to summon a legendary bird Pokmon called Ho-oh for him to fight. Ho-oh was an incredible thing to behold. It was massive, beautiful, and mighty. Its wings looked like they were ablaze with fiery rainbows, and it seemed to have some kind of deep wisdom. The girls speculated that it had been looking for someone like Dylan.

Ho-oh had devastating Fire type attacks in Fire Blast and Sacred Fire. Each of these was powerful enough to take down his Seadra in one hit at half damage. Its only other offensive move was psychic type, so he had Romeo tank the fire attacks until they ran out of PP and then switched to Ivan and threw Pok balls like mad. Finally, one of them stuck. It was an exhilarating feeling. He knew that this was the greatest thing he had ever accomplished, and probably ever would. He even got to apply a nickname to this god-like being. He called it Sol.

Pokdex: 151 seen/78 Caught

Team:
Sawyer (Gengar) lv. 38
Romeo (Typloshion) lv.36
Ivan (Umbreon) lv. 32
Leviathan (Seadra) lv. 33
Teddy (Meganium) lv. 33
Cedric (Noctowl) lv. 30

---

I can see why they started making the legendary on the cover actually relevant to the plot in later games. It's pretty weird that you get Ho-oh by having it randomly summoned by some magical Eevee girls. Though most of what's happened so far has also been pretty weird.

---

You might have said this, but do you plan on playing through Kanto and Mt. Silver too?

---

Gall posted...

I can see why they started making the legendary on the cover actually relevant to the plot in later games. It's pretty weird that you get Ho-oh by having it randomly summoned by some magical Eevee girls. Though most of what's happened so far has also been pretty weird.

Yeah, it's definitely weird. I think they were trying to sort make Ho-oh more plot relevant in line with the newer games. In the original Gold, you just get the Rainbow Wing from the Chairman of the radio tower and then take it up to the bell tower and find Ho-oh chilling there, and the Kimono girls are just five trainers you can fight when you first get to Ecruteak. I kind of liked that, though. I'm not really sure how I feel about the sense of destiny that comes from the mystical Kimono girls scouting your character in this game. I like the idea that your player character is just some random kid in Pokmon.

ctesjbuvf posted...

You might have said this, but do you plan on playing through Kanto and Mt. Silver too?

Yes, I will be playing through those. I feel like this game isn't really complete until you beat Red.

---

Dylan went back to the Pokmon Center and added Ho-oh to his party. He walked around with it for a little while, hoping it would turn some heads, but no one commented on it. They just talked about the happenings at the light house or which Pokmon could be found nearby. In the end, he decided to take on the Pokmon League without Sol or Deus. That would be more sporting. He flew back to New Bark town and had Leviathan surf and waterfall for him. After a long path full of tough trainers, he made it to Victory Road. He stopped and rested in a woman's house before going in, though he was a little suspicious about sleeping in the same room as a stranger. After he left, he checked his bag to make sure she hadn't stolen anything.

There were no trainers on Victory Road, just a lot of boulders and rock-type Pokmon. He had his Seadra lead the way for most of it, and then switched to Teddy to let him gain some experience, though that made the Golbat a much bigger annoyance.

At the end of the Road, Morris caught up to him and challenged him again. He had a full team of six now, but Dylan won without losing any Pokmon. Romeo dealt with Sneasel and Magneton, Teddy brought down Feraligatr with one Petal Dance, Kadabra and Haunter were no match for Ivan, and Sawyer took down Golbat. After the battle, Morris decided that Lance had been right and he needed to love his Pokmon more, and that was why he kept losing. Dylan didn't really think that was his problem. If he had been giving the advice, he would've just told Morris to switch his Pokmon and use items more often.

For his final preparations, he found a trainer to help him evolve Leviathan to Kingdra (which meant a trip back to Mt. Mortar for a Dragon Scale,) and revisited the Goldenrod department store for a Focus Blast TM, which he gave to Romeo. He had also taught Thunder to Sawyer and Blizzard to Leviathan. Now there was nothing left to do except challenge the Pokmon League.

Pokdex: 166 seen/82 caught

Team:
Ivan (Umbreon) lv. 36
Sawyer (Gengar) lv. 39
Leviathan (Kingdra) lv. 39
Isis (Nidoqueen) lv. 30
Teddy (Meganium) lv. 38
Romeo (Typhlosion) lv. 37


---

The first member of the Elite Four was a psychic user named Will. Some of his Pokmon had coverage moves, like Ice Punch on Jynx, but they still couldn't really touch Ivan, who proceeded to beat the whole team on his own, except Slowbro, which used Curse, prompting him to switch to Teddy and finish with Petal Dance.

Koga used some bug types that Romeo could instantly take down with Fire Blast, and Sawyer resisted his poison type attacks and then struck back with high-power Ghost Balls and Thunder for his Crobat.

Bruno's fighting types were helpless against Sawyer except his Hitmonlee with Blaze Kick, which still lost with a little help, and his Onix was just free experience for Leviathan.

Karen's Umbreon was where Focus Blast came into play. Her Murkrow fell to one Blizzard, and her Houndoom went down to two surfs with a switch out and some healing in the middle. Her Vileplume was harmless and her Gengar had a cripplingly strange moveset with no strong ghost type attack. Ultimately, all of the Elite Four went down without much trouble, which was unsurprising against the trainer who had captured Ho-oh. Now all that was left was the Champion, which he assumed would be Red.

Instead, he found Lance, the dragon-trainer he had met at the Rocket Base in Mahogany. As his lead, Lance used a Gyarados, which Sawyer easily cleaned up with Thunder. Next was a high-level Aerodactyl, which could take down Sawyer with one Crunch and Leviathan with two Rock Slides, while surviving a Surf. Teddy had just enough health and defense to survive one attack and use reflect, allowing Kingra to finish the job - except that Lance switched to a Dragonite after the first Surf. Sawyer couldn't take a Dragon Rush, but it was faster, so his best recourse was to whittle it down with Shadow Ball and sacrifice his other Pokmon to revive. Sawyer was holding Bright Powder so the move would sometimes miss, and Teddy could set up a second reflect to help a little. He struggled through the first two Dragonite and finished off Aerodactyl at the cost of most of his Pokmon. Lance's Charizard knew Dragon Claw and could take down Leviathan, but Sawyer finished it off with Thunder. That left one Dragonite, which used Outrage instead of the less accurate Dragon Rush. After sacrificing the rest of his Pokmon, it came down to a weakened and confused Dragonite against Gengar. If Sawyer scored a critical hit, Dragonite hurt itself in confusion, or it missed with Outrage, Dylan would win. Confusion on its own was a coin flip, so the odds were in his favor.

Sawyer used Shadow Ball!
The Foe's Dragonite is confused
The Foe's Dragonite used Fire Blast!
Sawyer fainted!
Dylan is out of useable Pokmon.

He had lost. He couldn't believe it.

---

Honestly it's a bit of a relief to see that I wasn't the only one who lost here. Lance's team is insane and I too was subject to some bad RNG. Good luck on the next attempt though!

---

Yeah, when you want to switch your team around a bit and not have your eyes set on six or less from the beginning the league gets tough. I usually avoid using items and just lose a couple of times to my levels up there.

---

Is this the end for our hero?!

---

If you level normally and dont grind, playing any Pokmon game and keeping 6 Pokmon at roughly the same level can definitely make the game tougher!

---

Yeah, I think it's mostly a matter of levels. It seems like a small level advantage can make a really big difference in Pokmon, so fighting Dragonite at around level 50 with a team in the high 30s - low 40s is pretty rough. I did also make a mistake by picking a Kingdra as my main ice-type attacker, since it's weak to dragon.

---

Dylan spent a long time sitting on the steps of the Pokmon League. Lance's team was so much stronger than his. They could take his Pokmon down in one hit where he needed three to return the favor. There was just no way he could beat that. He would have to train more.

He went back to Victory road, and decided to train Sawyer, Leviathan, and Teddy up to level 47. The other three were already strong enough to do their jobs. It was a long, tedious process. Fighting mostly rock-types and Golbat meant big gains to defense and speed - at one point, Sawyer gained 8 speed on a single level up!

The training made a big difference. The Elite Four became absolutely trivial, and he won his battle with Lance using a similar strategy to before. Leviathan could now survive two Rock Slides from Aerodactyl and take it down in one Surf, which let him reserve Teddy and reflect for the Dragonite. Sawyer fainted to a dragon rush crit, but he was lucky enough to land a Blizzard on one Dragonite with Kingdra and beat it in a single hit. Leviathan learned Dragon Dance midway through the battle, which let it set up against Charizard, one shot it with Waterfall, and then take out about half of the final Dragonite's health with Dragon Pulse (having deleted Blizzard for DD,) allowing Sawyer to finish without much difficulty. He wondered why Lance hadn't adjusted to his strategy at all, since they had fought before. Maybe he was busy with his duties as Champion.

Lance congratulated Dylan on his victory, and Professor Oak arrived with his radio co-host, who asked to interview Dylan. He would've been happy to do it, but Lance pulled him away into a room with a Pokmon Center-like machine which recorded his championship team. He had done it!

---
Alright, I'm gonna rip off Tangy's format and post a team ranking:

1. Sawyer (Gengar)

Gengar is a glass-cannon type Pokmon, but that tends to be strong in singleplayer. He could take down most enemies in one hit, rendering his lower defenses irrelevant. He also had access to a lot of nice coverage moves, of which I opted for Thunder. He was the backbone of most of my strategies in the latter half of the game.

2. Romeo (Typloshion)

He definitely does struggle more with the prominent types later on, but I still thought he was pretty good. He was definitely the most important Pokmon I had earlygame. Losing Flame Wheel at the daycare might have been a blessing in disguise, because Fire Blast let him one shot enemies like Morty's Piloswine. He could often take down 'neutral' targets in one hit with it too. He cleaned up a decent number of Pokmon in the Elite Four.

3. Leviathan (Kingdra)

While not as impressive as Gengar, Kingra's special attack and speed still got the job done in most cases. Water types are lucky since they get two solid moves as HMs. Kingdra gets Dragon Dance but no physical Dragon type attack, and though it has good special moves it can't learn calm mind or nasty plot, so it's a bit limited in that sense. Still, it's much bulkier than Gengar, and has high stats all around.

4. Teddy (Meganium)

Starting with Chikorita was a little rough for Ronald, since both of the first two gyms are good against it. That's why I had him use a Pidgeotto. I was pretty impressed with him later on, though. His durability was really impressive and he could one shot most of the things I needed him to with Petal Dance, as well as providing some nice utility in the final battle.

5. Ivan (Umbreon)

Ivan was pretty good. He could tank hits like a champ, but his offense was a little lacking, so it could take him a long time to bring enemies down, even if they didn't present much threat to him. He was stuck with the 40 power Pursuit for a really long time. I used him with Rest and berries, but there's no real point in singleplayer when you can just throw around Hyper Potions.

6. Isis (Nidoqueen)

I've used Nidoking before and he was really good. Nidoqueen is more or less the same, but just like the King she relies on TMs for Earthquake and Poison Jab. I didn't find either, so I had to settle for Dig, which was a bit of a letdown.

7. Cupid (Weepinbell)

I think leaf stones are mostly relegated to post-game in this. Bellsprout is also a bit let down by the physical/special split, because he gets growth to raise special attack but his only offensive move is vine whip for a long time. He was mostly useful as a stun spore/sleep powder bot.

8. Cedric (Noctowl)

Poor guy. Low stats, lots of cool psychic moves but no stab to utilize them with, and no real access to moves like Aeroblast that benefit from his higher special attack. It was just a little harder to get much out of him compared to the others.


---

Poor Cupid, Victreebel is actually quite good, he was actually the 2nd best member of my Blue team, which is saying a lot because I had an Alakazam as well!

It's a shame he couldn't be better here due to Gen 2 locking half the content behind Kanto.

---

BetrayedTangy posted...

Poor Cupid, Victreebel is actually quite good, he was actually the 2nd best member of my Blue team, which is saying a lot because I had an Alakazam as well!

It's a shame he couldn't be better here due to Gen 2 locking half the content behind Kanto.

Yeah, I would be willing to try Victreebel again if I played Gen 1 or something. The design choice behind relegating so many Pokmon to the post-game is baffling to me. I thought of using Jolteon, Houndour, and Suicune at different times, and felt like the game was cock-blocking me when I found out you can't get any of those until you beat Lance. I think that with water, thunder, and fire stones it might have been intended to help players realize that Umbreon and Espeon exist, but I don't know why Leaf stones get caught up in that. Maybe for Bellossom's sake or something.

---

Dylan was the champion now, but he didn't really want to spend all his time hanging around the Pokmon League waiting for challengers. He asked Lance to keep on doing that for him, and Lance agreed. Dylan went back home and spent a few days just relaxing, sleeping in late, playing Wii, and fishing in the water outside New Bark. Three days after his return, he came downstairs and his mom told him that Professor Elm wanted him for something. He felt like he owed Elm a lot, so he heard him out. Elm gave him a ticket to a ship that was traveling from Olivine to Vermillion City in Kanto and asked him to go to that region and find all the Pokmon that lived there for his research. Dylan didn't mind: it would make for something to do and he wanted to meet that trainer named Red who had been champion before him. Apparently he lived in Kanto.

Professor Oak was waiting at the docks, and gave Dylan a national Pokdex, which could store data on all kinds of strange Pokmon he had never seen before.

The S.S. Aqua was a shockingly luxurious cruise ship. Dylan had a room to himself with a complimentary P.C. and he found game consoles in some of the cabins. Most of the passengers were trainers and he spent the bulk of the voyage battling. He had decided to try using some new Pokmon and was training Alyosha for the time being, with his old powerful Pokmon as support. A little girl asked him to play hide and seek. He thought it would be fun - it had been a long time since he had played - but she didn't seem to understand the game. Instead of hiding, she just ran off and stood in the middle of the hall a short distance away. Her father thanked him for humoring her, anyway, and while they talked the captain announced that the boat had hit shore.

Vermillion City wasn't too much to look at. There was a construction site in the north of town. It seemed like the project had been stalled for a long time. The chairman of the local Pokmon Fan Club talked for a while about a Rapidash and then gave him candy as a reward for listening, which felt a little bit patronizing. The way he talked reminded him of Picnicker Liz from Johto. He wondered if they were related. On the east side of town, a Snorlax was sleeping and blocking the road, so he couldn't pass that way. He didn't really want to wake it up in any case: it looked so peaceful. It was big enough to be scary, but it was really very cute.

He decided to challenge the local gym. It was all electric trainers with a leader named Lt. Surge. What definitely evoked his military connections was that before they could battle, Dylan was obliged to sift through rows and rows of trash cans to find a hidden switch. Once he pressed the first one, he had to guess which of three or four nearby cans had the next switch, and if he got it wrong the switches would move and he would have to start over. It felt like the kind of thing a drill instructor would make new recruits do because he got a sick thrill out of watching them suffer. Lt. Surge liked accuracy manipulation. He used paralysis, double team, and a move called mirror shot that did a little damage and lowered accuracy. Dylan was lucky enough to get through okay, mostly using Sawyer.

In the north, the road to Cerulean was blocked off, leaving him no place to go except on to Saffron City. He was tired by the time he got there, but his Pokdex told him that there were some nocturnal Pokmon nearby, so he thought he would catch some before sleeping in the Pokmon center. He caught a Murkrow and a Houndour, which he named Cerberus. Tomorrow he would challenge the gym.

Pokdex: 187 seen/ 85 caught

Team:
Alyosha (Espeon) lv. 25
Sawyer (Gengar) lv. 51
Romeo (Typhlosion) lv. 40
Leviathan (Kingdra) lv. 49
Cerberus (Houndour) lv. 15
Teddy (Meganium) lv. 47

---

Yeah, the Johto games are kinda weird in the sense that they made a lot of the cool new things exclusive instead so you had to work for them. I understand the thoughts behind it, but it probably wasn't the best idea.

Not to mention it's weird that something like Houndour is a Kanto exclusive.

---

Beat Sabrina, Eirika, and Janine today. Feeling pretty tired, so I'll try to update in the morning.

---

Trying to raise Cerberus in the Saffron City gym, Dylan kept exposing his Pokmon to moves like Hypnosis and Confuse Rayon switch-in. It could lead to frustrating situations, where they would hurt themselves multiple times in a row or sleep for far too long and wind up fainting - and he couldn't do anything about it. He decided the situation couldn't continue, and flew all the way back to Johto to give Mr. Pokmon the red scale in exchange for an Exp. Share. If Cerberus held it, he could level up without needing to participate in a battle, which was much more convenient.

Sabrina's Pokmon feel easily enough to Sawyer's ghost-type attacks, and he headed onward to Celadon city. At the department store, he bought a Dark Pulse TM for Cerberus, which had more special attack than physical but mainly learned physical moves. He was curious about the local casino, but it turned out to only contain the same annoying voltorb game as the one in Johto. The Celadon gym specialized in grass types, so it was a good chance for Romeo to come back into the limelight - but he failed to sweep Erika's team due to poor luck with status effects, and Sawyer had to finish things off. He took the shorter bike path south to Fuchsia City, where there were a lot of scary-looking bikers, but they all turned out to be really nice. A lot of them asked for his phone number.

Dylan wasn't interested in trying out the catching game where the Safari Zone had previously been, so he just went straight onto the Gym. The leader, Janine, was Koga's daughter and shared his poison tactics. She had her gym trainers disguise themselves as her, including one boy who seemed a little insecure about it. Dylan meant to fight them all for the experience, but accidentally spoke to the real Janine before some of the others. He managed to beat her by having Leviathan set up with Dragon Dance against her Ariados and then run over her team with waterfall.

To get his new Pokmon up to speed, he spent a long time going to all the nearby areas and battling the trainers there. On the path between Fuchsia City and Lavender Town, Cerberus evolved to Houndoom and finally became strong enough to start fighting for himself, so Dylan switched him to the lead position and gave the exp share to Alyosha. Suicune appeared again in the water on this route.

After all that training, he arrived in Cerulean City, where the gym was deserted and most of the fuss was about the nearby power plant. The place had a poorly-chosen location: he had to surf a long distance just to reach it. He knew no one else would fix the place, so he would have to take a stab at it. That was just how things seemed to work. A crucial piece of the machinery had been stolen, and the workers asked Dylan to look for the thief, although they already knew he was in the Cerulean Gym. The thief was a Team Rocket grunt with a heavy accent. Dylan chased him to the bridge north of town, where they had a Pokmon battle. Cerberus defeated his Golbat with two uses of Dark Pulse, and he gave up the part. He didn't know that Team Rocket had disbanded, and when Dylan told him, he vowed to leave and rebuild the Team in his home country. Dylan thought he should just give up.

Pokdex: 219 seen/ 91 caught

Team:
Cerberus (Houndoom) lv. 41
Romeo (Typhlosion) lv. 43
Teddy (Meganium) lv. 49
Leviathan (Kingdra) lv. 52
Sawyer (Gengar) lv. 54
Alyosha (Espeon) lv. 40

---

So, how many times have you been to Kanto now? And how does this version compare?

---

Gall posted...

So, how many times have you been to Kanto now? And how does this version compare?

Truth be told, I've never really played the Kanto section of the original Gold/Silver. I lost my copy of Gold once I got to Lance originally and didn't play it again until years later, when I reached Sabrina and stopped because I had been training Pokemon like Furret and Beedrill that just sucked too much to keep bothering with. In comparison to Kanto in Red and Fire Red, it's a lot faster and a little smaller. I was kind of disappointed to learn that the Power Plant, which was originally a big optional dungeon in those games, is just a small single room in this one. Since you already have all the HMs by the time you show up in Kanto, you can really just go straight to the Gyms if you want and skip large portions of the region. I think that's okay, though, considering you get an entire 'extra' region in this game compared to every other Pokemon game.

---

To the north of Cerulean City, Dylan found the local gym leader on a date with a boy. Her date ran away when he saw Dylan - he didn't know why, no one had been afraid of him before. The girl introduced herself as Misty and kept calling him a pest, but she returned to her gym, which was just a swimming pool. He expected to clean up her whole team with Teddy, but it choked against her Starmie by hurting itself in confusion and then getting frozen by Ice Beam, so Sawyer had to finish things up.

Once he had the Cerulean City gym badge, he went back to the cottage north of town and found Suicune waiting for him. Eusine arrived just afterward and gave Dylan his blessing to catch the legendary Pokmon. For a moment Suicune just stood watching him, exerting a calm presence, and then it began fighting, charging around the meadow launching attacks at frightening speed. Its moveset didn't make much sense though. It had Rain Dance, but its only attacking moves were Aurora Beam (Ice) and Gust (Flying,) so it couldn't gain any benefit from that. Dylan brought back Cupid to help catch it with Stun Spore and Sleep Powder. First, he had Alyosha weaken Suicune and lower its accuracy with Sand Attack, because one Aurora Beam was more than enough to knock out Cupid. Once it was safer, he switched in Cupid and used Sleep Powder and then threw Ultra Balls until one finally worked. After watching Suicune run on water, the nickname felt obvious - he called it Messiah.

With the power plant repaired, the radio station in Lavender Town was working, and a man there gave Dylan an upgrade to his Pokgear as a reward. It let him tune into a Pok Flute station, which he used to wake up the Snorlax to the east of Vermillion. He caught it on the first Ultra Ball, and named it Brnnhilde. Now that it was out of the way, he could go through the Diglett Cave and onto Pewter City, where he visited the local museum and faced the rock-type Gym Leader Brock. Teddy took out Brock's Omastar and Kabutops, and the rest of his Pokmon made an easy debut for Messiah, who could one shot them with Surf.

Pokdex: 229 Seen/ 94 Caught

Team:
Messiah (Suicune) lv. 45
Cerberus (Houndoom) lv. 43
Brunnhilde (Snorlax) lv. 50
Alyosha (Espeon) lv. 43
Sawyer (Gengar) lv. 54
Teddy (Meganium) lv. 51

---

It's like the greatest hits of Kanto. Which worked so well that they put the greatest hits of Kanto into every new game.

---

Yes, that's a good way of putting it!

---

After defeating Brock, Dylan went south through Viridian Forest to the city of the same name. The gym was abandoned and the town quiet, except for an old man who openly bragged that he used to be great at catching Pokmon (he didn't say how he was at battling.) He asked Dylan if he believed him and Dylan admitted that he did not, which caused the man to start ranting, using words like 'impertinent.' Dylan just walked away. He was more interested in Pallet Town, which was Red's hometown. In fact, when he arrived, there was a house with a sign out front that said it belonged to Red. That seemed a little self-centered, but Dylan wasn't really one to talk. He went inside and found Red's mother, who told him that her son had been away for a while and she didn't know where he was. She didn't comment when Dylan went upstairs to see Red's room. It was very ordinary - quite similar to his own. While he was in town, he visited Professor Oak at his lab. Oak just told him to come back when he had all eight Kanto Gym Badges, so he sailed south, to Cinnabar Island, where the next gym was supposed to be.

He found the island in ruins, with a Pokmon Center as the only sign of civilization. There was a guy named Blue on the shore, who told him that the island's volcano had erupted one year before - and confessed to being the Viridian City Gym Leader. He didn't seem willing to return to his job just yet. With nowhere else to go, Dylan went on to the Seafoam islands, and found the next gym hidden there. Most of the gym trainers went down to Messiah easily enough, but things got trickier when it came time to fight Blaine, the leader. His Pokmon used Sunny Day, which led to a struggle between sun and rain. Dylan managed to set up Rain Dance and then beat Blaine's Magcargo, but his Magmar was faster and would use Sunny Day at the start of any turn where the rain was around. With the harsh sunlight in effect, Surf didn't deal much damage, so he tried switching to Cerberus, which could resist fire type attacks and counter with Dark Pulse. Dark Pulse didn't deal any more damage than Surf, though, and Magmar's Overheat surprised him and knocked out Cerberus from over half health. At that point, he just sent out Sawyer and had him wreck everything.

When he went back to Cinnabar, he talked to Blue, who was impressed enough with his 15 badges to go back to his gym and await Dylan's challenge. He was the most impressive trainer Dylan had faced yet, with a full team of six at high levels and with varied types. Blue led with Exeggutor and Dylan with Cerberus, which nearly one hit killed with Flamethrower and forced out a Full Restore. Using Dark Pulse, Blue did not heal, but his Pokmon still fainted in two hits. He followed up with Rhydon, and Dylan switched to Teddy and one hit KOed with Petal Dance, but that left him unable to switch out as Blue's Arcanine came out and burned Teddy to the ground. He switched to Messiah and used Rain Dance + Surf. Blue's Machamp was very resistant against both Surf and Psybeam, and took down Messiah and Alyosha both. Sawyer finished it off before nuking Blue's Gyarados and Pigeot with Thunder. There was a certain exhiliration in finally finding someone else who knew what he was doing, and he felt a lot of respect for Blue. Now he wanted to find Red even more.

Professor Oak called him and asked him to come visit. After a short bike ride, Oak gave him the HM for Rock Climb and told him that he would be admitted to Mt. Silver. He decided to go there next. He returned to Viridian and then went to the Pokmon League on his bike, where the guard let him take the path west. He traveled through Route 25 and into the mouth of a cave, and then stepped onto Mt. Silver.

Pokdex: 247 seen / 96 caught

Team:

Cerberus (Houndoom) lv. 48
Alyosha (Espeon) lv. 49
Sawyer (Gengar) lv. 55
Messiah (Suicune) lv. 49
Teddy (Meganium) lv. 53
Brunnhilde (Snorlax) lv. 50

---

A lot of Kanto's lack of content was due to limitations when making the original GSC. It's a solid bit less empty in the remakes.

---

I did notice that there's a lot of post-game content in Kanto now, including rematches with the gym leaders among other things, which is nice.
---
Mt Silver was a long ascent, one that required teaching Snorlax Rock Climb, but Dylan made his way upward. A rare Pokmon called Moltres was nesting in the cave. Without any Pokmon to inflict status effects, catching it was a struggle, but he managed. He also found a small, low-level Pokmon called Lavitar running around. He didn't know how it managed to survive here, but he caught one and called it Tybalt. It must have had some kind of hidden potential.

Red was standing on the summit, facing outward. Dylan stood and watched him for a while. He didn't move. It was cold up here. He wondered what Red could possibly want to do here for so long. He walked up to him and said hello. Red didn't say a word, but sent out a Pikachu. Dylan tried to outspeed and KO it with his Gengar, but it proceeded to sweep his entire team, dealing more damage to itself with Volt Tackle than any of Dylan's Pokmon could hit it for. He ran back to the Pokmon Center in disgrace. He was going to have to do a lot of training.

There were still some strong Pokmon to catch, so he took out Thor the Flaafy as a Thunder Wave user. He also added Tybalt to his team. He spent a long time training on Natu at the Ruins of Alph, which at one point caused his Suicune to gain 15 special attack on one level up. Then he spent a little while practicing at the base of Mount Silver before returning the the Seafoam Islands by way of Fuschia City. Thor evolved to Ampharos and Tybalt to Pupitar. The sea route there still had a lot of trainers he hadn't battled. Thor could hold its own against them now. There were a lot of trainers at Seafoam who used the inconvenient water/ice type, forcing him to respond with Espeon instead of Houndoom. At the bottom he found Articuno. He weakened it to red health and paralyzed it, but still took over 60 Ultra Balls to finally catch it. Messiah did an admirable job walling it until then.

Pokdex: 256 seen / 106 caught

Team:
Thor (Ampharos) lv. 39
Messiah (Suicune) lv 54
Tybalt (Pupitar) lv. 31
Abe (Pigeotto) lv. 19
Alyosha (Espeon) lv. 52
Cerberus (Houndoom) lv. 51

---

IIRC the Kanto legendaries were not there originally. They also put a good bit of things from gen 3 and 4 Pokmon into the games, probably mostly 3.

On top of gym leader rematches, the league has also gotten much stronger in these games upon getting the Kanto badges, which is a lot easier repeating than getting the gym leaders to face you.

Them there's things like Viridian Forest straight up not existing previously because they couldn't make room for it.

---

Yes, you are right about the Kanto legendaries. I didn't know that Viridian Forest was absent from the original Gold/Silver, but that's funny. Could you even get Pikachu in those games, or did you have to "time travel" and trade with Red/Blue?

---

Training log: Day 1

Spent more time at Mt. Silver. The outside area near the start seems like the best place to train. Returned to the power plant and caught a Zapdos. Thor weakened and Tybalt walled. 130 Ultra Balls. Tried the stronger Elite Four, lost to Bruno. Tybalt is lv. 45. Slow progress for the rest of the team.

---

Training log: Day 2

Pure grinding at Mt. Silver and the League. Tybalt evolved to Tyranitar. Tried the League again and lost to Lance's Gyarados with Dragon Dance. Thor is almost ready to take it on.

---

I think the in-game excuse was just that it had accidentally burned down. Things like Cinnebar Island having an eruption was most likely there for similar reasons. IIRC there was no gym on Seaform Islands then, you could simply battle Blaine.

Pikachu was still there I believe, just outside the forest.

---

After four days of training, Dylan finally managed to beat the Elite Four again. Tybalt was a huge help against the first two, Alyosha and Messiah handled Bruno, and he had to use a mix against Karen. Messiah mostly soloed Lance's team with Ice Beam, and Thor had just enough health to survive one hit from Gyarados and counter with a fatal Discharge. When he won, Lance repeated the same speech he had given last time, and Oak and his co-host even showed up again. It was really weird - as if they had forgotten the last time this happened. He did like getting the chance to register his new team at the Hall of Fame, though.

He felt emboldened, and decided to take on Red again. Thor had to learn Rock Climb so he could make it back to the peak. Tybalt survived Pikachu's Iron Tail and one hit KOed it with Earthquake, despite a 30 level gap in Pikachu's favor. Blastoise missed its blizzard and focus blast often enough for Thor to take it out. Lapras was the hardest to deal with. He had to wall it off with Messiah until it ran out of PP for all its moves and knocked itself out with struggle, while Red and Dylan both threw around full restores. Snorlax ultimately lost to Tybalt thanks in part to the defense drop from Crunch, and Charizard was helpless against him, dealing very little damage with dragon pulse and falling to one Rock Slide. Venusaur was the least impressive of all: it was slower than Alyosha, failed to OHKO him with Sludge Bomb, and fell to two uses of psychic.

Red didn't say anything. He left the mountain, moving so fast that Dylan couldn't tell where he had gone. There was no arguing about it now: he was the best trainer in either Kanto or Johto.

As he sorted through his backpack for hyper potions to refresh his team with, his hand touched something. He pulled out his notebook and stood there in the snow, flipping through it. There was nothing there except simple drawings and scrawled notes. It had been a long time since he had added anything to it. He flew back home, went to his room, and tucked it away in the drawer of his desk.

Final stats:
Pokdex: 273 seen/ 111 caught

Team:
Tybalt (Tyranitar) lv. 58
Teddy (Meganium) lv. 53
Cerberus (Houndoom) lv. 54
Messiah (Suicune) lv. 61
Alyosha (Espeon) lv. 57
Thor (Ampharos) lv. 55

Rankings for the Kanto team and final thoughts on Pokmon Heartgold coming soon.


---

Alright, let's get this show on the road. I'll be using the same format as last time for this round of rankings:

1. Messiah (Suicune)

Not too surprising for a legendary. Suicune was definitely essential for most of my late-game strategies. He was the best for grinding on Mt. Silver, an important part of my strategy for the second Pokmon League, and probably my most important Pokmon against Red.

2. Tybalt (Tyranitar)

A lot of the new Pokmon were implemented oddly in Gold/Silver, but Larvitar got the worst of it. In Red, you could get a Dratini when you first arrived in Celadon, which would give it a long time to level up to Dragonite at the end of the game. In Gold, they threw that kind of high scaling Pokmon in the very last area of a 40 hour RPG at a super low level. All you can really do with Tyranitar in the originals is fight Red, but for what it's worth, he was really impressive once he evolved, and a crucial part of my Elite Four and Red strategies.

3. Alyosha (Espeon)

I think I like Espeon better than Umbreon for single-player. Think of him as a slightly weaker Alakazam. He's fast and hits hard with psychic, but gets knocked over by a stiff breeze. Most of the time that was good enough. He helped a lot against Bruno and took down Red's Venusaur.

4. Cerberus (Houndoom)

Pretty good offensive Pokmon. Dark Pulse is a TM and he learns Flamethrower by level-up, so I was pleased with his movepool. His stats might be a little more balanced than I'd like, since physical attack is high but I ended up using him as a strict special attacker. Availablity hurt his cause a bit, because he was still catching up when I fought Sabrina and Erika.

5. Thor (Ampharos)

I really wasn't planning on using an Ampharos, but poor planning on my end left me without a status user when trying to catch some legendaries, so I added him. He did help a bit in the last two battles.

6. Brunnhilde (Snorlax)

Snorlax is kind of cool, so I thought about trying it out, but this one was a huge choke artist. If I ever play Diamond again, I think I'll train a Munchlax. About the most useful thing this guy did was use rock climb on my first path up Mount Silver.

---

Final Analysis: Pokmon Heartgold Version

What I thought of Pokmon Heartgold: Sometimes relaxing, sometimes frustrating
Would I play it again? Sure.
Did it deserve to make division finals? No.

I've played my fair share of Pokmon games in my day, but Heartgold was the first time I really spent much time with the franchise in the last few years. Thinking back, the last full playthrough of any Pokmon game I did might have been in Mystery Dungeon: Red around two years back. Returning after some time away can change your perspective a bit, and I think the biggest thing I gleaned this time around was as follows: "Pokmon has way too much bloody RNG."

Playing one of these games in single-player can be a kind of zen experience. It uses very little brain-power. You mostly just run around KOing everything in sight with the same one or two moves, usually in one hit. Most trainers will have vastly under-leveled Pokmon compared to the player's, even if you use a full team. That might be when the game is at its best. That kind of relaxing quality definitely goes away when you get hit with confusion and have to watch helplessly as your Pokmon hurts itself three times in a row, or when Koga's Muk gets a minimize off and then you miss, and things fall apart from there as it slowly gains back the damage your rare hits do with its black sludge. I happened to watch a little bit of Pokmon speedrunning while I played, and it looks like a truly masochistic pursuit: a run of several hours can be ruined by a poorly timed critical or status element.

Catching legendary Pokmon sucks. You do everything you can to weaken them, and then you send out a Pokmon that walls them and mindlessly chuck Ultra Balls until one finally catches, which can take a shocking amount of time. I ended my own run with Pokmon like Entei and Lugia uncaptured because I was just sick of it. I can understand that the chance needs to be low so that legendary encounters don't feel anti-climactic when you catch them on the first try, so here's my proposal for a fix: with each Pokball you throw, the chance that the next one will capture is slightly increased.

The individual games in this series can feel a little interchangeable, but one thing I do appreciate about Gold/Silver in particular is how it follows on from the first game. I think ideas like Blue succeeding Giovanni as a Gym Leader, Cinnabar Island's destruction in a volcanic eruption, and Red as a super-boss were pretty cool. I think I would like this series better if it did things like that more often. The amount of content in these games is also nothing to sniff at: as was discussed in this thread, the original games were pushing up against what could fit on the Game Boy's cartridges.

Pokmon was definitely a speed bump for this project. I think it was the first time there were days when I didn't play at all, and the overall amount of time it took me to finish was excessively long. Although grinding for Red was a drag, I don't really blame the game for that. I think it just came during a time when I was feeling a little depressed and having trouble with motivation. Still, when I look back on the games of this project, I'll be surprised if it makes the top half.

---

Alright, at long last, it's time to move onto the next game!

Red Dead Redemption
Release Date: May 18, 2010
I will be playing on: PS3, GOTY Edition
Previous Experience with RDR: Went to Mexico
What I expect from RDR: A pretty sandbox and a lot of transit.

"Eyy Partner! It's me, John 'Demption from the game Red Dead Redemption!" - Videogamedunkey, "Red Dead 2 (free version)"

I must have been fifteen years old the last time I really played Red Dead Redemption. I had to buy a copy for this project, because back then I played my brother's copy on his XBOX - this was also the reason why I didn't finish the game, if I remember right. My chances to play it were kind of limited since it wasn't my own copy. I remember really liking what I did play of it. That was back when I was new to story-heavy games and wanted anything I could get my hands on that was full of cutscenes and dialog. I remember finding the simple act of riding around the desert absorbing because it was a visually impressive setting, and I liked how a lot of the side-quests had little self-contained stories.

People don't have good memories, and I'm clearly no exception, because a decade later I can remember those qualities but next to nothing of the specific storylines, snippets of dialog, or any particular pretty locations. I remember how it ends, since that was a talked-about moment at the time, I remember the controls being kind of crappy, and I remember that you spend the first few hours of the game wrangling cows, so I have that to look forward to. I can also recall spending a lot of time riding beside on NPC along the road just listening to them talk with old John 'Demption. I liked that as a teen, but I don't think I can say it's terribly good game design. I think I'll still like it, but I wonder if it won't show its age a little.

---

I really liked your write up on HeartGold it kind of sums up my thoughts pretty well too, especially on Pokemon as a whole. However I feel like the Johto games are some of the weakest. Over this past year and a half I played a ton of Pokemon and honestly the problems you mentioned feel at their worst in Johto.

Half the Gym Leaders have some pretty frustrating tactics, mix that some really poor level scaling and it winds up being more frustrating than challenging. I don't mind the idea of a challenging Pokemon game, but I feel like it's important to give tools for either grinding or strategy. Which I found to be severly lacking.

Now I may be in the minority with this opinion, but I'm not a fan of the addition of Kanto. I like seeing how it changed since Gen 1, plus the fight against Red is dope, but I think it hurts Johto, as well as the game's legacy as a whole. When it's being discussed Kanto is usually the main thing that's brought up and I feel like it wouldn't be as well remembered without it.

Regardless of my negativity though, Pokemon is still Pokemon and at its core I'll always love building a team and finding new favorite Pokemon. I would just rather play the better games.

Also I'm really hyped for Red Dead, it'll be my first time playing, even though I already know the ending as well

---

That analysis pretty well sums up why Pokemon has never clicked with me. Still, reading through the game with your writeups has been very entertaining. A bittersweet end to Dylan's journey, as he beats the strongest trainer and finds no one left to battle.

Because Red Dead 1 still isn't on PC, I will be watching a video of all the cutscenes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVesOi1arI4
Not only am I going in blind (except for the ending), I've never seen an actual western film before.

---

Surprised Sawyer wasn't up there, he seemed to be crucial a lot of times.

It was an enjoyable run. Took a lot of time but such it is. Really appreciate how your write-ups were done.

---

BetrayedTangy posted...

I really liked your write up on HeartGold it kind of sums up my thoughts pretty well too, especially on Pokemon as a whole. However I feel like the Johto games are some of the weakest. Over this past year and a half I played a ton of Pokemon and honestly the problems you mentioned feel at their worst in Johto.

Half the Gym Leaders have some pretty frustrating tactics, mix that some really poor level scaling and it winds up being more frustrating than challenging. I don't mind the idea of a challenging Pokemon game, but I feel like it's important to give tools for either grinding or strategy. Which I found to be severly lacking.

Now I may be in the minority with this opinion, but I'm not a fan of the addition of Kanto. I like seeing how it changed since Gen 1, plus the fight against Red is dope, but I think it hurts Johto, as well as the game's legacy as a whole. When it's being discussed Kanto is usually the main thing that's brought up and I feel like it wouldn't be as well remembered without it.

Regardless of my negativity though, Pokemon is still Pokemon and at its core I'll always love building a team and finding new favorite Pokemon. I would just rather play the better games.

Also I'm really hyped for Red Dead, it'll be my first time playing, even though I already know the ending as well

Yeah, I think you may be right about the level scaling issues and annoying strategies being more prominent in the Johto games than most other generations of Pokemon. I don't think I would want Kanto removed, but I can see how some of the design around it was questionable. Having two regions in one game is definitely one of its main distinguishing characteristics, and I agree it gets brought up more than anything else when people talk about this one, but maybe that just shows how repetitive the series is, to the point where it's hard to come up with much to talk about for any individual installment besides such big/obvious things.

Gall posted...

Because Red Dead 1 still isn't on PC, I will be watching a video of all the cutscenes:

Checking out the video, I'm glad it includes all the parts where John is walking around with an NPC in gameplay and they're talking, because one thing I'm noticing so far is how much of the storytelling is done outside of proper cutscenes.

ctesjbuvf posted...

Surprised Sawyer wasn't up there, he seemed to be crucial a lot of times.

It was an enjoyable run. Took a lot of time but such it is. Really appreciate how your write-ups were done.

I didn't include Sawyer because he was already ranked on the Johto list, though thinking back that was a little weird. He was definitely still my win button early on in Kanto. If I did an joined ranking of all the Pokemon I used in both regions, he would probably be first.

Thanks for the compliments on the write-ups for Pokemon. It was probably the most exhausting game to write about because of the format I took, so I like to think it was worth it.

---

I played a couple hours of RDR today. It opens up with an intro where John Marston comes to town on a train, rides out to meet his old friend at a place called Fort Mercer, and promptly gets shot dead. The people in a small frontier community rescue him and he does some simple tasks for them in return, which double as the tutorial missions. This opening feels hauntingly similar to another game I'll be playing for the 2010 section of this project!

So far, main quest-giving NPCs in this game are Miss Mcfarlane, who's missions are all menial ranch-hand jobs like patrolling her ranch for Coyotes or driving her around, and a Marshal who has us shoot guys. I've done a couple missions for each of them, and started up a few stranger missions and bounties, which are the game's major sidequests. I've also spent a worrying amount of time terrorizing the local wildlife. So far the controls are definitely awkward, but one thing I definitely appreciate is how well-realized the setting is. Although I wouldn't really know, it seems like a good amount of effort and research went into that aspect of the game. Writing seems solid. I'm surprised by how amiable Marston is, because I feel like the protagonists in Rockstar games are usually pretty aloof.

---

Okay, I realized pretty fast that that video was cutting out too many NPC walkaround parts, so I have swapped to this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFP9epOX0jw

Which is close to 6 hours long, which is close to half the average runtime of a full walkthrough video. So if I miss anything now, it can't be that important.

---

I had to deal with a lot of chores around the house today, so I didn't get to play quite as long as last night. I met Nigel West Dickens and died about 6 times on his first mission trying to aim and ride at the same time, before realizing the game pretty much steers for you if you're aiming. I think Mass Effect lured me into a false sense of security when it comes to my shooter skills, because I picked Hardcore mode in this game and the results so far have been pretty embarrassing. For lack of time, I had to stop partway through one of the Marshal's missions, just after a point where you have to shoot a man using a hostage as a human shield and get an instant game over if you hit the hostage, which gave me a lot of trouble. I hope you can load from a mission checkpoint, because I'd rather not restart that one. I'll find out tomorrow.

Also finally made it to the mission where you heard cows, which was actually the most interesting and important mission of the session, since the dialog gets into Marston's backstory and motives. To summarize, he was an orphan who spent a lot of his youth with a gang, settled down with a wife and son, and has now been roped in by the government to hunt down one of his old buddies, which was the guy who shot him at Fort Mercer. Aside from the fact that no one liked the first Red Dead, that's where the "Redemption" part of the title comes from, and it's in service to this theme that Marston is generally a better person than most GTA protagonists, and the game is pretty heavy-handed about discouraging law-breaking, to the point of locking you out of half the content if you're a wanted man.

I don't think I'll spend much more time terrorizing the wildlife or gathering flowers, because it's kind of boring and I don't see much point.

---

i fell behind on this topic and I am ashamed, need to dive right back in, happy to see you guys are still at it

---

ZenOfThunder posted...

i fell behind on this topic and I am ashamed, need to dive right back in, happy to see you guys are still at it

Well, to be honest, I don't expect anyone to follow this topic religiously. That would be a pretty big undertaking in and of itself. It has a good format for you to come in and out when it works for you.

---

Bad news: you can't load from a mid-mission checkpoint in this game. No surprise, really. I had to restart the Marshall's mission, but I got through the part that gave me trouble last time on the first attempt today. Marston meets his old buddy Bill on that mission, but they only exchange a few words before the latter sics some cronies on John.

I also did Bonnie's mission where you break in horses, which I had been dreading because I had a memory of briefly playing this game a few years back on that exact mission and being totally unable to do it. This time around, though, I thought it was really easy. Last time I was probably tilting the analogue stick in the same direction John was facing, rather than the opposite to balance him. Luckily, my brief stint with Death Stranding trained me to come back to this. I took the time to do her mission where you guide a herd of cows through a storm too, which was probably the most stressful part of the game so far.

I completed two stranger missions: American Appetites and Jenny's Faith. The former is about some cannibals killing people in the hills on the north end of the map. It's kind of repetitive: you hear someone talking about a missing family member, ride out to the hills, and find a blood spot. On the third time, you find the cannibal instead. Weirdly, the game gives you the choice between saving a would-be victim and letting the cannibal eat him. Don't really see why anyone would pick the latter. Jenny is one of the characters from the train in the intro movie and her story is kind of an ironic one about her being such a religious fanatic that she refuses help from John even though she's dying in the desert. It kind of brings to mind that old joke about the guy in the flood who refuses to get on a boat because he thinks God will save him, drowns, and gets upset when he arrives in Heaven, and then God tells him He sent the damn boat. I can't say I found either little sub-plot too interesting or satisfying, really.

---

Along with a lot of riding back and forth between towns, I've nearly completed the first major "arc" of the game. I can only take on missions from a couple of Dickens' cohorts at this point. The most important mission I did today was probably the one where Mrs. Macfarlane (I always want to call her Beth Macfarlane, even though it's Bonnie,) gets captured by some gang members in retaliation for us capturing one of their pals on a mission with the Marshall. There's a part where they hang her from a gallows and you have to shoot through a bunch of guys to rescue her in time, which is a good setpiece. It didn't cause the kind of emotional reaction in me that it might have been aiming for though.

One thing I'm noticing a little bit is that things tend to escalate a lot for the sake of the game mechanics. What I mean is especially visible in one mission with Dickens where he tries to sell some phony elixir and gets caught, which leads to a huge shootout on horseback with a small army of enraged townsfolk. The severity of the reaction feels more like it was written because it's a shooting game rather than because it makes sense in context.

Today I finished the stranger missions Water and Honesty, Let No Man Put Asunder, and Who Are You to Judge? The first is a surprisingly straightforward one where you flip a property for a small profit, the second is a kind of predictable story where an old woman is crying over her missing fiance and it turns out that he's been dead for years and she's delusional, and the third one involves finding a man's missing lover - which turns out to be a horse.

---

Alright, after a weekend off I got back in the saddle with RDR and crossed off a few of Seth's and Irish's missions. I'm knocking on the door of the Ft. Mercer assault now, but it won't be the first thing I do when I play tomorrow. I did Seth's mission where you finally track down the treasure he's been looking for all this time, which predictably turns out to be something with very little value (a glass eye, in this case.) With Irish, I did the mission where you pick up a gatling gun. Both scenarios involve a whole lot of shooting. I find the cover mechanics less restrictive in this game than in Mass Effect, at least. I usually waddle around outside of cover just shooting people when they pop up in this one. The Irish mission turns into a mine cart level where you're pushing the cart and shooting at the same time, but in practice that's kind of just an easier version of the horseback shoot-outs.

I'm starting to feel the same shooting fatigue I experienced with ME2. This game's engine actually can do a lot of things that aren't shooting, but the missions still resort to it most of the time. It feels a little odd because something like a treasure hunt doesn't really need killing to spice it up in my opinion. I also think there's a bit of a weakness in the writing in that killing a bunch of minors to suit John's ends undermines the "redemption" aspect of the story a little.

I didn't finish any stranger missions, but I just need one more red sage to knock off one of them, so I'll be searching high and low for that tomorrow.

---

Barely had time to play today.

Red Sage grow out in the Rio Bravo region of the game's map, which is also known as Cougar Country. The furry bastards are always aggressive and can one shot your horse - a fact I learned the hard way. The experience definitely taught me a new hatred for the wildlife in this game, and I've opened fire on all the wolves I've seen since. Fortunately, there was a man and a woman sitting on horseback near a pond, so I snatched the guy's mount and saved myself a very long, slow trip back to town. I didn't even get a bounty for it.

With three desert sage, three red sage, and three wild feverfew, you can complete the stranger mission Flowers for a Lady, where an old guy asks you to gather a bouquet for his wife. I actually did remember this one from last time I played - his wife turns out to be a corpse. Typical.

By the time that was done I was too close to work to be able to start another mission, but I did have time to help a random stranger whose horse had been stolen near Thieves' Landing. The thief backed himself onto a narrow dock, which made him easy to lasso off the horse, but once I did that the horse jumped into the water and died. It must have really not wanted to go back to that owner.

---

I returned to Crash yesterday and beat The High Road, only to stumble on the following level.

---

This has been one of those weeks where I have trouble getting out of bed. I booted up Red Dead for a little while, but the only productive thing I did was play the Liar's Dice minigame for a stranger mission. I found it pretty boring. It's a bluffing game against pretty simple AI. Once the number of dice gets lower you can usually just spam the "dead on" button, since the AI will only bid the type of dice it has. The game temporarily increases the cost and winnings for the minigame with this mission, so you can exploit that to make a lot of money. I won twice and turned my ~$200 into $1,000, which is probably all I'll need for the rest of the game.

I also started Irish's next mission, but I was cutting it too close in terms of time, which made me rush, lose a couple times, and wind up having to turn the game off partway through. I'll have to restart it next time I play.


---

I've cleared two more levels in Crash since I last posted in this topic, but yesterday I got stuck again on Jaws of Darkness.

---

A little ashamed I missed three days in a row. Like I said, it's been a bit of a rough couple weeks for me.

I finished the stranger mission California today, and made progress on some of the others. California is the story of a man called Sam Odessa who is trying to make his way west, but after being too proud to accept help from John, eventually goes insane and dies out in the desert. He leaves a letter to his family lamenting how he has thrown his life away in search of a vain pursuit, which is something of a theme of the game's storytelling. I think I would've liked his arc better if it were actually possible to help him in some way, speaking personally. Maybe that's just a testament to what I find satisfying in video games though.

I also finally made some story progress. Between skipping the cutscenes and knowing my way around the combat arena I caught up to where I was in Irish's mission super fast. It was the last one I needed to do before the big assault on Ft. Mercer, which is basically a turret level, almost akin to the maps at the end of some Left 4 Dead campaigns where you mow down loads of mindless zombies with a machine gun. Williamson himself escaped to Mexico, though, and John Marston is now pursuing him there. He crossed the border by way of a long river, and an uncanny number of enraged locals attacked his raft for harboring Irish (or "the rat" as he is apparently known in Spanish.) That was one of the harder missions so far because, like the horseback shooting sections, you can't really retreat to cover and regain health. I had to rely a lot on the bullet time to get through.

So yes, I have to admit this is the first game of the project I've grown tired of partway through, and I would probably drop it if I wasn't playing it for this topic. I think it's partially because I've been reading some comics lately - especially Gunnerkrigg Court, which reminded me a little of the problems with RDR's method of storytelling. I just don't think the narrative gains that much by being broken up by these long shootouts and riding sequences. I also get a little tired of following an NPC at the start of every mission, especially when they're moving at a slow walking pace. Dying in this game can be really demoralizing, especially outside of missions, where it can mean having to ride across a huge section of the map to get back to where you were. This has been especially bothersome when heading into the very enemy-dense bandit strongholds for the sake of the "Funny Man" stranger quest.

---

I'm up to 3 hours through the cutscenes (which is up to midway through the Mexico arc) and I've been enjoying the story so far. The NPC escort dialogue is much easier to appreciate when you can just move on to the next story beat right after it's done. It also helps that I like Marston's personality, he's thankfully not as dour as most AAA game protagonists but he's not too quippy either. So far the game has mostly followed the Rockstar structure of having you do odd jobs for a bunch of different quirky characters, but the Fort Mercer mission tied it together well with having them all show up as part of your posse. So I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next.

It's too bad that the gameplay isn't as engaging. The bullet time mechanic looks pretty fun but I guess it's not.

---