Current Events > Attempting to replay Pokemon Heart Gold (Spoilers)

(+) Yeah! (+)

"Frank? I'm just calling to say I found a great item down in Wonderland Plaza. I bought it with your money! Hope you don't mind!"

"Frank? I'm just calling to-"

"Hey, don't cut me off like that! It's rude!"

I'm starting to think the player character's mom is in need of a hobby.

Snorlax.
Gather round. Once every few years I have to tell someone about this and be reassured my logic made some sense.
This is probably the most stuck I got on any game. Possibly ever.

The Snorlax is asleep in front of the route to Pewter City. In the previous game you used a Pokeflute to wake it up.
You got the Poke Flute at the top of the Pokemon Tower from Mr Fuji in RBY. Mr Fuji is present in Lavender Town but he won't give you one. In this game, the Pokemon Tower has been bulldozed and replaced with a fancy radio tower.
It stands to reason that history might repeat itself and I might need to climb up the Lavender radio tower to get a Pokeflute.

If you open your Pokegear, there's a radio channel where you can hear a Pokeflute being played.
Now this is the solution but it didn't occur to me that I was supposed to put the Pokeflute radio channel on, I was playing on a Gameboy and they weren't very loud. Flutes are pretty loud up close. Nothing else in the game operated this way either. I exclusively dealt in walking up to the right object or person and pressing A.
I instead took this as confirmation of what I thought. If there's a guy on the radio playing a Pokeflute, that means there is a Pokeflute up in the Lavender Town Radio tower. I have to get up there.

The next question "How do I get up there?" Well earlier in Goldenrod, they only let you so high up into their radio tower until you progress to a certain point in the game. You go elsewhere and find this to do and eventually they let you up.
I took this to mean I wasn't meant to go up the Lavender radio tower yet. I had to go and complete other things to get the guy in the way to move. Saving cartridge space did not occur to me at all.

I tried everything. I thought it might be a reward for catching enough Pokemon, the same way Oak's assistants would give you items for Pokedex milestones in gen 1. I beat the league a stupid number of times, evolving Pokemon for the Pokedex and trying to think of things.
I asked people I knew. "Uh yeah you gotta do that and go up the tower, I did that but I don't remember how I did it, it was a while ago." Fuckers.
I talked to a lot of NPCs and examined everything. I kept coming back to the sea at the bottom of Fuchsia hoping I'd somehow opened that and created another way round. I had my suspicions the guy with the Machop flattening the ground in Vermillion might be able to help. It just kept going.

And then one day after a long time I was staring at Snorlax, trying to regroup, going over the puzzle pieces and happened to accidentally solve it by talking to Snorlax while the radio was on.
I didn't even bother catching it. I could time capsule one over from Blue. I gleefully had a lv100 run it over. One of the three lv100s I had by that point. I was there a while.

Today, Snorlax is parked in front of Diglett's Cave once again. I have to choose between reconciling or doubling down.

If you haven't done it yet, false swipe him down to 1 hp. False swipe him one more time just to be sure. Get him within an inch of his life. Then catch him

We met in the middle.
Snorlax refused to get in the two Friend Balls I threw at him. Doesn't get less friendly than that.
He refused the six Premier Balls. But he had Leftovers that I wanted. Fine, uncermonious Pokeball catch + dumb nickname + the PC it is.

I wonder how Brock will do against my grass type, two steel types, two water types and my fighting type.

The old guy in Pewter City gave me the Silver Wing.
I hope that still means what I remember it meaning. Lugia in Gold?

Rival just greeted me with "Hey, (Player name)! You're here in Kanto, too?" which is uncharacteristically friendly enough to catch me off guard. Even the last fight, I'm pretty sure he comes up all "Grr this is me at my best let's battle!"
I should appreciate the character development but the similarities to modern rivals concerns me. Please don't turn into one of them. Edit: And then he blamed his Pokemon and gave me a friendly enough "See ya!" before leaving.
Oh right, I decided to go to Mt Moon. I let Brock have some time to make peace with the inevitable and realised I went to Fuchsia City and forgot about the gym.

Janine is a gym leader who got the position because her dad was inexplicably promoted to Elite 4. Guessing Agatha retired and they were desperate for the first poison type user they could find.
Janine uses Ariados. Not one, but two of them. On purpose.
Koga had an Ariados too now that I think of it.

Maybe in Pokemon land, you're sworn to uphold your family's dignity by insisting the Pokemon your ancestors used was and still is the best.
Would explain the rival getting as far away from using ground types as possible.

Oh actually in the English version, maybe it goes deeper. In Japanese I know they're named stuff like Kasumi and Takeshi, regular names. In English, rock trainers just so happen to be named Brock. A girl named Roxanne too. A steel trainer named his son Roark, probably with the type advantage on his mind.

"I really enjoyed the battle with you!" - Brock, who was hit with 5 consecutive 4x damage Giga Drains and did not get a turn.
Maybe he hates his Pokemon. Maybe he's insane. I know I just got on Koga and Janine's case about using Ariados, but Brock used Graveler. Something's up.

I think seeing Professor Oak initiating a physical fight with someone would be very entertaining.

I sailed toward the centre of Cinnabar island. I was thinking about the FRLG layout for Kanto and briefly forgot it was destroyed. Oh.

They could have fixed it in the remake. Like how Viridian hedge maze got promoted back to a forest. I kind of like that they didn't. We still get to see not-Gary Oak break character and act taken aback by something.

Oh right, Blaine.
On one hand, it's kind of smart building his gym by an ice cave where he can train easily. On the other hand the entrance is surrounded by water. He doesn't have a Surf user. How does he move around? Is there food in Seafoam Islands? Do they go downstairs and serve up anything they can hit with a stray Fire Blast?

In the other game he had quizzes blocking the path and in the show he was all about riddles. Feels weird that this time it's just beating scientists until one walks in the right direction. There was enough space in there for a low budget game show.

Huh. I seem to remember Not-Gary calling me Johto Boy a lot. They took his lego gym away too. I'm not even sure what its current theme is. He could be watching the place while they find a new monotype trainer, unintentionally giving it a reputation for being very strong in the process.

The fight was good though. They gave him a lot of full restores. I had to re-paralyze that Machamp like four times. It's weird that the Machamp's there though. It's not a bad Pokemon but I'd have kept the Alakazam personally.

Professor Oak has avenged his family member by forcing Rock Climb into a move slot on my team.
I can go to Mt Silver too, but I'm gonna need some levels. Wonder where I'm supposed to train.

Hmm, things to bump with while I'm levelling.

I already went in on the HMs with the other game.
Well, I'm pretty sure there's more legendaries to capture and give irreverent names to. But that's later...
Oh I know, team members that never were!

List of Pokemon I considered.
Corsola (I thought this would be funny. I was carrying one around until I found out it couldn't learn Waterfall.)
Xatu (I have no flying type, I have no psychic type, it'd be a new Pokemon I've hardly ever used.)
Ursaring (I think this is a good Pokemon. I don't know if a lot of people use it in these games, I think Pokemon XD handing you a Teddiursa right at the start and Ursaluna being invented recently messed with my perception of its popularity.)
Politoed (Basically never used it. Shame it doesn't have Drizzle in gen 4. If it did it'd be priority number one. Hell, if it had Drizzle I'd probably have 4 water Pokemon on my team.)
Slowking (Never really used it either. But I'd been telling myself for ages that I should go through a game with Slowbro at some point so that won out.)
Smeargle (Honestly I can't remember where to get one. Somewhere around Ruins of Alpha in OG GSC I think. I found a single one in the Safari Zone but it got away. This would have been fun.)
Skarmory (OU in gen 4 online, but do people use it in the main game? I always liked the spikes/stealth rock/roar spam thing.)
Gligar, Yanma, Sneasel (Cool dudes. I'd lose Johto points when they evolved. I just used Gliscorr in White 1 as well so that'd get a bit samey.)

Almost every time I play a handheld RPG, I end up wondering why they're not the main thing I play.

Red is defeated.
Not gonna lie, I was drawing on memory of his GSC team, mostly level 70, so when the first level 85 came out I thought me and my under-levelled Johto compatriots were in trouble. We got there though.

They make you use an HM drone to get up the actual mountain so Hitmontop kept the bench warm.
Other than that, here's a team that beat Red on the first try.
Lanturn lv70 (Completely shut Pikachu down with Volt Absorb and Leftovers. Got lucky dodging a Focus Blast from Blastoise and then landed a Discharge that also paralyzed.)
Forretress lv70 (Got Stealth Rocks up, stalled out Venusaur and fixed up the team. )
Bellossom lv71 (Baited Charizard into switching into rocks early and paralyzed him on the same turn.)
Kingdra lv72 (One-shotted Charizard on the turn Red used a Full Restore.)
Scizor lv72 (MVP, set up three Swords Dances against Snorlax, then one-shotted both Snorlax and Lapras with X-Scissor.)
Rock Climb HM08 (Successfully infiltrated its host who was conveniently already mindless and got me up Mt Silver.)

Now, I think I have a small shopping list of mythical creatures, whose tales of legend are in dire need of degrading endings.

Oh and there's gotta be E4/leader rematches. Wonder if they're tuned to be fought before or after Red. I feel like Red's gotta be strongest in any game where he's an optional opponent. They could be lower level but have crazier strategies I guess.
I do really like the idea from earlier, gather all the gym leaders up in the dojo and see how many I can run through in a row.

In the meantime, I need to remember what legendaries are kicking about. Scizor, Kingdra, Lanturn and 3 HM bag carriers are off to besmirch some legacies. Starting with this Zapdos who's just kind of sitting in the shade besides the Power Plant.

Oh they didn't even give him his own battle theme! They're doing my job for me! The disrespect!

Update: Zapdos has been caught, renamed "Putter" and banished to the PC with Ho-oh.

Brock's gym: Lots of rocks. He uses rock types. Might help them blend in.
Misty's gym: Lots of water, obvious terrain advantage.
Erika's gym: Lots of plants, fully invested in both plants and plant Pokemon.
Lt. Surge's gym: "So? Eh? Whaddya think? Best trashcan collection in Kanto, right?"

Oak gave me a Bulbasaur for beating Red
I started with Chikorita
Steven just gave me a Treeko
I picked Turtwig in Platinum not long ago
I chose Snivy in White a week or two ago.

I'm not sure what exactly it is, but it's complete.

I've been at it. I've got some more legendaries. I got impatient with the roamers, ultra balled one then master balled the other. Everything else was in a regular poke ball. I never used the master ball Cyrus gave me on Platinum so even though there's a Latias still out there, I have a strat.

Here are the residents of PC box 14 so far.
DSP (Articuno, lv50)
Putter (Zapdos, lv50)
BLONIC (Moltres, lv50)
ThePrinter (Entei, lv40)
SNOKE (Raikou, lv40)
homework (Suicune, lv40)
beanbag (Ho-Oh, lv45)
Kyle! (Kyogre, lv50)
BayouBilly (Mewtwo, lv70)

Aside from Latias roaming, there's still a Rayquaza where Kyogre was if I can bring a Groudon over. There's also the thing where Arceus makes a Sinnoh legendary. In Platinum they let you catch all 3 Sinnoh legends anyway so that's down to personal preference.

Scratch that, I missed a step.
The Snorlax I caught earlier redeemed himself. He came with the move Block. My Lanturn Thunder Waved the roamers so Snorlax could land it. The problem was they also knew Roar.
Latias might not know Roar. Maybe if they have a messed up sense of humor they gave it Whirlwind. Or Explosion somehow. This shouldn't be a job for a master ball though.

Oh yeah I got Lugia.

All this catching. By Pokemon standards this has been a really long stretch of gameplay where I've earned no EXP. I'm still where I was when I beat Red level-wise.

Elite 4 Rematches. Opinions as I go.

Will has gotten better but that wasn't a high bar to exceed.
He's got himself a Bronzong (Fun Pokemon, I endorse this) and Gardevoir (I used this in basically every RSE playthrough)
I don't know if the Grumpig is just meant to surprise me or what. The Slowbro and Jynx makes me think people were telling him he's a way worse first E4 member than Lorelei and he caught them to address it.
Still has a Xatu. I like that the team feels different at least.
I think E4 members should get different pre-fight and post-fight dialogue based on whether it's the first round or the rematch.

Koga,Going in with low expectations.
He started off with a Skuntank which used a crit Explosion which my Forretress just narrowly survived. That's... different.
Toxicroak. Meh. Crobat? No real issues.
Swalot? This feels like how Will had a Grumpig. A random forgettable Gen 3 Pokemon in there for the sake of variety.
Venomoth. Straight up, this isn't a Pokemon an E4 member should be using, especially in a rematch.
Muk. Better than Venomoth at least.

Bruno. I don't know what to expect. It really depends if he's dead set on keeping the three Hitmons or not.
Damn it, Bruno.
A Lucario. How imaginative. Yawn.
Hariyama. I like Hariyama. Good fun to use in Pokemon Colosseum. I give this a single cool point.

Karen, whose name aged well considering dark type is evil type in Japan.
Weavile, Houndoom, Spiritomb, Honchkrow, Umbreon, Absol
Hey, it's an actual dark type team this time!
No complaints. Huge improvement.

Lance. GB Sounds enabled. Saying ahead of time if he has an Altaria I'm going to be disappointed because that is the lamest dragon. Even the flying type team was better.
Salamence. OU throwback, I half expected it to Focus Sash DD.
Garchomp. My Bellossom the Garchomp slayer. I am surprised and proud.
Charizard. Lame. (Looks at fire flying type combo) "BE A SHAME IF..."
Altaria. (Ferocious booing)
Dragonite. Of course.
Gyarados. Great but... This guy picked Altaria over Kingdra. On purpose. I'm in awe. If I was him I'd definitely want at least two Pokemon that didn't explode at the mere mention of Ice Beam.
Weird guy, that Lance.

There's this scene in Dragon's Den I just remembered.

Teaming up with the rival to face Lance and Clair. The levels are really unbalanced so I just one-shotted Clair's side so we could team up against Lance. I correctly predicted he'd go Gyarados/Charizard/Dragonite. Shameful team composition.

The circumstances are kind of messy, but the rival technically defeated the champion. I like that. He might be the champion, but Lance is a gen 1 character. I have to root for the gen 2 character even if he's hard work.

Now, I have some Gym Leader numbers to collect up.
Edit: Oh and they come with flavor text when you talk to them to get the numbers. I didn't even think of that, it's small but I really enjoy that kinda thing.

Okay. Whew.
Every gym leader is gathered in the Saffron City dojo. That was a grinding session of its own. A whole secret Animal Crossing time travel minigame. That could have been quicker and easier.

I feel like it's a given that they'll be improved, but still weaker than the Elite 4, so I'm just going to fight all 16 in a row and enjoy it instead of taking notes.

That was a lot of fun. Didn't leave the building. 8 Johto gym leaders, a round of heals and elixirs, then the 8 Kanto gym leaders.
All those teams of 6. 16 trainers, Stealth Rock has 20pp. Nobody uses Rapid Spin. Fun. I should have bought the other entry hazards and Roar/Whirlwind.
Not-Gary bought a Tyranitar and I thought it'd be funny to stall out his Pidgeot with his own sandstorm. I don't agree with bringing a Rhyperior instead of a Heracross like in FRLG though.

I guess I'm getting near the end of my to-do list.

The worst thing I've ever experienced in a Pokemon game might be taking place.

Hmm...

I trade Groudon over. I go to Oak. Jade Orb. Neat.
I go to where I got Kyogre. Rayquaza is here.
I fight the Rayquaza, I try to catch him.
Oh no, Outrage-induced confusion and Rest. That's tricky.
Rayquaza gets confused from fatigue fairly quickly and loses all his health to it.
Soft reset and try again. Goes a while the second time but it dies.
Reset again.
It's a shiny Rayquaza.
Heart stops. Immediate realisation that from this day on no matter what happens, I'm not gonna be able to look at this Pokemon the same way.
Lanturn, lv74. EV trained for health, has Thunder Wave. Good tank, can eat Air Slashes like nothing, can take three Outrages before healing.
We fight a while, Signal Beam to do damage in the smallest increments while it's asleep. Paralysis buys time, it uses Rest and gives me two free turns.
I start throwing balls.
It spams Outrage, it gets confused, his health gets low. Sometimes paralysis buys me time.
AI seems merciful enough to use Rest before getting too low on HP.
Outrage and rest alternate for a while.
Occasional Ancientpower but it only gets 5 of them. No omniboosts.
A few streaks where 4 balls in a row roll to the side 3 times.
Throw over 100 balls.
Eventually Rayquaza runs out of points for Outrage and Rest around the same time.
Every turn becomes either Rayquaza being paralyzed or using Air Slash.
Lots of Air Slashes.
A few more balls roll to the side three times.
More Air Slashes, one or two turns lost to paralysis.
Struggle.

Again. Hmm...

Tragic. I live in fear of such things, I don't even use my MB on roamers unless I get extras. A desirable shiny, something that hits hard, it confuses itself and heals itself. And you were unprepared! But you can't say it didn't add to the experience as a whole

I put the game down. I'd rather go do something else.

I've been trying figure out if it's actually the worst luck I've ever gotten in a video game or not. I can't think of anything that really compares. And I caught a shiny and had the game freeze before saving once.