I’m Really Enjoying Pokemon X
Yes, I started this game on October 12, 2013… which was the release date for Pokemon X. And I am now only making progress through it. Better late than never… and I’ve been having so much fun with this lately!
Sorry for the shoddy quality of the pictures. Apparently Miiverse doesn’t like taking screens of Pokemon X on my 3DS. So I had to resort to phone pictures.
Anyhow, one of my goals month by month is to earn one badge at a time in Pokemon X in order to try and make progress before my copy of Pokemon Sun comes. I missed the goal last month, so I decided that I’d double up this month. I’m glad I did, because I’m really starting to enjoy where this game is going.
It helps that I now have the Fly HM, which allows me fast travel to places I’ve already been. I also discovered the whole Wonder Trade system, which I tried for the first time this weekend. I actually got a number of pretty cool Pokemon that I hadn’t caught yet.
But, best of all, I earned the two badges that I set out to achieve this month!
I’m sad to admit that of all Pokemon games I’ve played (exactly three), this is the highest number of badges I’ve ever earned. My main Pokemon are severely overpowered at this point (my Delphox just hit level 51 last night), though, which makes catching wild Pokemon (one of my favorite things to do) somewhat a pain.
Looking Back – Blue and Soul Silver
I was kinda curious about what state I left my two older Pokemon games in. So, I fired up my GameBoy Advanced and Nintendo DS to see.
I got Pokemon Blue on release in 1998, and played it for 10-something hours based on my save game. I’d left my character aboard the SS Anne with about 24 Pokemon in the Pokedex and two badges earned. Incredibly, my original save game is still in tact almost 18 years later! 😀
In Pokemon SoulSilver, I also earned 2 badges. It looks like I had a bit over 8 hours of play time and 20 something Pokemon in the Pokedex. I recently took some time to watch a Let’s Play to catch myself up to where I’d left off in this game (Azalea Town).
The one thing that hit me instantly upon looking back at older Pokemon games is that the number of Pokemon you could hunt for on each route has significantly increased, sometimes doubled. For example, on Route 29 in SoulSilver, you can catch only 4 Pokemon (excluding the Sound types), and some of them can only be found at day or night.
In contrast, Kalos Route 3 in Pokemon X contains 8 different Pokemon to capture! I know that the Pokedex is so vast now, but I honestly spend quite a bit of my time hunting and capturing Pokemon, so the time investment for this is game much higher. It’s also harder to capture a specific Pokemon sometimes since there’s so many for the RNG to pull from.
I remember enjoying SoulSilver when I first picked that up years ago. And while I want to go back and mess around with the older games I own, I find myself attached to the more modern sensibilities of Pokemon X. I’d forgotten how tiny some of those old Nintendo system screens were, and how small the sprite graphics for older Pokemon games were, too!
Will I gather all the badges in Pokemon X? Will I do it before Pokemon Sun releases?
I don’t know, but the next location I need to travel to is called Spooky House. I do love spooky things, so I’m excited to check it out tonight and to mess around with some more Wonder Trades!