no subject
Feb. 9th, 2019 10:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marchionessofmustacheRandom thoughts while playing Pokémon Crystal:
OK, so just before running around in Dark Cave, I double-checked to make sure that's where you get Teddiursa. And indeed, it was, and I was in the right spot of the cave, too.
So after like an hour of running in circles (the same 10 squares on the map lol) I finally triple-checked and... the time has to be "Morning" time. Which... I was going to talk about how it's cool that they added the day and time stuff to the game. But now I'm kinda mad at it, hahahaha.
OK, so let's talk about this day/night system. Pokémon 2 introduced the time system into the franchise, where the game's battery would keep track of the day of the week and the current time. This was pretty awesome, as the game would cycle through day and night, and different things would occur at different times and on different days. This also meant some Pokémon were only available at certain times. I started my journey late last night, which allowed me to catch the nocturnal BARON right away.
Gold, Silver, and Crystal stay mostly "DAY" during the day, then turn to "NITE" during the evening, and stay that way until 4AM when it becomes "MORN" for a few short hours. There are only these three distinct time periods, and MORN for some reason lasts almost no time at all. I guess it's supposed to represent the crack of dawn; people who are sleeping stay asleep during this time, and there are very few Pokemon who are exclusive to this time period.
One of those, however, is Teddiursa. Whom I was trying to catch.
After spending like an hour walking around the little 2x5 rectangle in the front of Dark Cave, I realized I needed to be playing in MORN. Now, I'm fortunately using an emulator that is for the most part good about the time sync. It will update the virtual battery to the proper time as long as time has passed since the last time you opened the emulator. This also means you can alter your computer's clock to manipulate the in-game clock, but only by moving the time forward, not backward.
So I moved the time forward to Sunday morning, then went about searching for Teddiursa. Normally I would not abuse stuff like clock manipulation, but I want to actually play the game today and can't move on til I catch this thing, so I'm OK with it. Then I encountered one, hit it once... and it fled. Yeah, these things will RUN AWAY apparently. And their catch rate is kinda shitty so after taking another like 20 minutes to encounter a few and have them all run away and eventually run out of balls... I decided that I'm OK with save-scumming this part for the sake of just getting on with the game. I didn't save scum at all in the previous runthrough, and basically I'm just doing it here for the sake of saving time (if I were to not, I'd just have to buy more balls, and if those ran out, start the entire game over from the beginning to get more money to buy more lol) and not for allowing myself to overcome any kind of challenge through luck manipulation.
Then I learned you have to set the clock FORWARD, so I set the clock backward to like Jan 27th at 5AM to get the clock synced with the right day of the week and in-game time without moving the clock forward, then changed the computer clock back to real time and finally after closing and opening the emulator and changing the clock a bunch of times, I FINALLY HAVE A STUPID TEDDIURSA.
<-- SO WELCOME THIS ASSHOLE TO THE TEAM.
What's worse is that I don't even like Teddiursa. I had very few options for "hulking things," and my other two were pretty much Feraligatr and Tyrannitar. I wanted to keep the tradition I started of not using the normal three starter Pokemon, and then Tyrannitar is only available after you've completed nearly everything in the entire game, including the second challenge to the League after earning 16 Badges. So that's not an option at all.
So the only other thing even remotely hulking and monstrous was this big bear, Ursaring. I've always kinda hated it for being "plain" and "uninteresting." Because it's literally just a bear. There's nothing special about it, no interesting design or quirk or anything, just... a bear.
So maybe this playthrough will help me appreciate the big bear a bit better. But this rocky start is not helping.
The Pokedex entry for Teddiursa says it eats so much honey that its paw is like permanently flavored like honey, and when it appears its animation is sucking on its paw. That's kinda cute, I guess. But also kinda gross and I want to kick the stupid thing.
Seriously this consumed like my entire morning and I am mad LOL. I'm about to have lunch and this was my entire progress today. Catching MAILLET.
Oh, wait, we did catch one other little guy, who got kind of ignored because of all that crap... also welcome this other little buddy:
DONNELLY, the Zubat. Like mentioned before, he gets a pass because he's going to evolve into an all-new Johto Pokemon in the end, so it's okay that this unevolved version is a repeat from last game.
This was another hard decision. There was almost NOTHING sinister available in the game. At first, I wanted to use one of the game's new types, Dark Type, since it's defined by being sinister and underhanded. But there are almost no Dark-types in the game. We have Murkrow, which is a little cutie. And then there's Houndoom that doesn't even show up until post-game. And I think that was it? So I started looking for other solutions. I considered Octillery, because it's weapon-themed, and war is sinister and governments push wars and yeah it was really stretching. I also really needed something to use some of the water-based HMs.
In the end, I went with Crobat. Like Tentacruel, it's a pretty sinister-looking monster on its own, and bats, despite being adorable fuzzballs in real life, have a reputation of being associated with spooky shit like vampires and stuff.
So here we go. Thanks Dark Cave for our two new teammates, both at a whopping Level 2. Now we have to split up the experience between those and our Level 7 bug. Nobody has any decent moves. I'm already scared of moving forward.
Also I reached this Pokeball in the dark. It took a while, and all it contained in the end was a potion. So, uh, yeah, I'm like 90% angry with this game at the moment lol. But at least we have three team members.
- Caterpie's animation is so weird.
- Dark Cave is accessible quite a bit earlier than I remembered.
- Geodude makes a jack-off motion every time you encounter one and it's so funny XD
- I really love that when you enter a new route/area the name of the place is displayed on screen. Like I REALLY love that.
- There are so many Geodudes in here lmao
- I ran into Dunsparce before Teddiursa this game hates me
- I wonder how much it would hurt to get a handy from Geodude
- OK, I'm gonna listen to a podcast while I do this...
- Listened to an entire episode of Planetary Radio (47 minutes) and still no Teddiursa
- SKLGJLKSDJGLKSDJGLKDSJGLKDSJGLKSDGJ
OK, so just before running around in Dark Cave, I double-checked to make sure that's where you get Teddiursa. And indeed, it was, and I was in the right spot of the cave, too.
So after like an hour of running in circles (the same 10 squares on the map lol) I finally triple-checked and... the time has to be "Morning" time. Which... I was going to talk about how it's cool that they added the day and time stuff to the game. But now I'm kinda mad at it, hahahaha.
OK, so let's talk about this day/night system. Pokémon 2 introduced the time system into the franchise, where the game's battery would keep track of the day of the week and the current time. This was pretty awesome, as the game would cycle through day and night, and different things would occur at different times and on different days. This also meant some Pokémon were only available at certain times. I started my journey late last night, which allowed me to catch the nocturnal BARON right away.
Gold, Silver, and Crystal stay mostly "DAY" during the day, then turn to "NITE" during the evening, and stay that way until 4AM when it becomes "MORN" for a few short hours. There are only these three distinct time periods, and MORN for some reason lasts almost no time at all. I guess it's supposed to represent the crack of dawn; people who are sleeping stay asleep during this time, and there are very few Pokemon who are exclusive to this time period.
One of those, however, is Teddiursa. Whom I was trying to catch.
After spending like an hour walking around the little 2x5 rectangle in the front of Dark Cave, I realized I needed to be playing in MORN. Now, I'm fortunately using an emulator that is for the most part good about the time sync. It will update the virtual battery to the proper time as long as time has passed since the last time you opened the emulator. This also means you can alter your computer's clock to manipulate the in-game clock, but only by moving the time forward, not backward.
So I moved the time forward to Sunday morning, then went about searching for Teddiursa. Normally I would not abuse stuff like clock manipulation, but I want to actually play the game today and can't move on til I catch this thing, so I'm OK with it. Then I encountered one, hit it once... and it fled. Yeah, these things will RUN AWAY apparently. And their catch rate is kinda shitty so after taking another like 20 minutes to encounter a few and have them all run away and eventually run out of balls... I decided that I'm OK with save-scumming this part for the sake of just getting on with the game. I didn't save scum at all in the previous runthrough, and basically I'm just doing it here for the sake of saving time (if I were to not, I'd just have to buy more balls, and if those ran out, start the entire game over from the beginning to get more money to buy more lol) and not for allowing myself to overcome any kind of challenge through luck manipulation.
Then I learned you have to set the clock FORWARD, so I set the clock backward to like Jan 27th at 5AM to get the clock synced with the right day of the week and in-game time without moving the clock forward, then changed the computer clock back to real time and finally after closing and opening the emulator and changing the clock a bunch of times, I FINALLY HAVE A STUPID TEDDIURSA.
<-- SO WELCOME THIS ASSHOLE TO THE TEAM.What's worse is that I don't even like Teddiursa. I had very few options for "hulking things," and my other two were pretty much Feraligatr and Tyrannitar. I wanted to keep the tradition I started of not using the normal three starter Pokemon, and then Tyrannitar is only available after you've completed nearly everything in the entire game, including the second challenge to the League after earning 16 Badges. So that's not an option at all.
So the only other thing even remotely hulking and monstrous was this big bear, Ursaring. I've always kinda hated it for being "plain" and "uninteresting." Because it's literally just a bear. There's nothing special about it, no interesting design or quirk or anything, just... a bear.
So maybe this playthrough will help me appreciate the big bear a bit better. But this rocky start is not helping.
The Pokedex entry for Teddiursa says it eats so much honey that its paw is like permanently flavored like honey, and when it appears its animation is sucking on its paw. That's kinda cute, I guess. But also kinda gross and I want to kick the stupid thing.
Seriously this consumed like my entire morning and I am mad LOL. I'm about to have lunch and this was my entire progress today. Catching MAILLET.
Oh, wait, we did catch one other little guy, who got kind of ignored because of all that crap... also welcome this other little buddy:
DONNELLY, the Zubat. Like mentioned before, he gets a pass because he's going to evolve into an all-new Johto Pokemon in the end, so it's okay that this unevolved version is a repeat from last game.
This was another hard decision. There was almost NOTHING sinister available in the game. At first, I wanted to use one of the game's new types, Dark Type, since it's defined by being sinister and underhanded. But there are almost no Dark-types in the game. We have Murkrow, which is a little cutie. And then there's Houndoom that doesn't even show up until post-game. And I think that was it? So I started looking for other solutions. I considered Octillery, because it's weapon-themed, and war is sinister and governments push wars and yeah it was really stretching. I also really needed something to use some of the water-based HMs.
In the end, I went with Crobat. Like Tentacruel, it's a pretty sinister-looking monster on its own, and bats, despite being adorable fuzzballs in real life, have a reputation of being associated with spooky shit like vampires and stuff.
So here we go. Thanks Dark Cave for our two new teammates, both at a whopping Level 2. Now we have to split up the experience between those and our Level 7 bug. Nobody has any decent moves. I'm already scared of moving forward.
Also I reached this Pokeball in the dark. It took a while, and all it contained in the end was a potion. So, uh, yeah, I'm like 90% angry with this game at the moment lol. But at least we have three team members.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-11 08:52 pm (UTC)I wonder how much it would hurt to get a handy from Geodude
It would probably hurt a helluva lot. I’m gonna have to advise against it. Though it would give a new meaning to phrase… rock hard *badaum tissss!*
On one hand, I dig the idea of a “real time clock”. On the other—fuck that. I’m a grown ass adult with responsibilities. I don’t have time for that. (Hell, even when I was grown ass middle schooler, I didn’t have time for it. Screw you, Joan the Turnip Boar from Animal Crossing! I’m not getting up early on Sunday just to play your twisted stock market games!)
It totally sucks what you had to go through to get Teddiursa buuutttt my god he’s so fuckin’ cute. I love him to pieced.
Hi Donnelly! Yay, Zubat! Since they’re so common, I’ve always wondered if people used them often. When you mentioned “sinister” my first thought was Houndoom, because he’s one of my favorites I can remember from this gen. Didn’t realize you couldn’t get one till post-game. That’s super lame. Did you consider Umbreon? It’s a new evolution, after all.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-12 12:57 am (UTC)Yeah, I never had time for Joan and her stupid turnips. Other than this stupid MORN Pokémon, the real-time clock in GSC was pretty lenient. Basically certain things would reset every day (like berry trees would grow new fruit each day) or some things would only be certain days of the week (like haircut place being open Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday or something lol) but you'd have multiple opportunities for them and they'd be open all day.
I actually like Zubat quite a lot, especially since Crobat became a thing. I think they go overlooked a lot because they're the obnoxious every-three-steps-in-the-cave thing. You usually encounter them a ton at the beginning of the game and it takes them forever to get strong. Once I was in this weird RP (the only RP I've ever been in) for Pokémon and I played as a kid whose first Pokémon was Zubat hahah.
I did consider Umbreon, as well, but Eevee is sadly ALSO post-game. IDK what the designers were thinking. I mean, the post-game in this game is like an entire second game unto itself, though. Then there's post-post-game where Tyrannitar is hanging out which makes NO sense.