Over the Christmas holidays I had some time to spare. I used it very productively by playing Pokémon! Well not just any Pokémon, I played one of my favorite editions. In fact this was the one that got me into Pokémon. It was Pokémon Pearl that was my first Nintendo Game on the DS and I replayed it now on the Switch with the remake Shinning Pearl. In this article I will tell you what I managed to do in the 30 hours game time as well what I liked and did not like about it. I will present you my final team and in the end I want to talk about my future plan in this franchise. With that being said, let’s jump right into it! 😊
Memories Of Old Lost Friends!
Coming back to Sinnoh was like coming back home. Everything felt familiar and I could not wait to start my journey all over again. From encountering new Pokémon to evolving them into new forms. It was a nice escape from the stressful last weeks of the year. With this being said, it almost made me cry when I had to chose my starter. As I was always a fan of the little cute Ape, I chose him once again. Just look at him, who wouldn’t want this guy to accompany him throughout your adventures?
We quickly started to catch new Pokémon, but Chimchar was always choice number one which is why this guy also had the quickest development and was able to stay in my final team until the end. Nevertheless, it was like meeting old lost friends for the first time again and had a nostalgic touch to it.
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New But Old Gameplay
Throughout the game I remembered the old mechanics, like mating Pokémon, letting eggs hatch or evolving Pokémon with certain stones. It was really interesting to see what was hidden in my memory just from playing the game again. On top of that this game had several new features. For example it is now possible to go underground and see the Pokémon in real time so you can choose which one you want to catch. This was actually something new that I really enjoyed. But apparently the new games have this already implemented in an Open World scenario. I know, I am living under a rock :D
Anyways, this experience definitely hooked me once again to this franchise although I am in a completely different sector of my life right now. The gameplay never gets old and searching for the Pokémon to complete your Pokedex is really something that never gets old in my opinion. With this being said, let’s take a look how my final team looked like.
Final Team
With this team I was able to win the League at the end. I must admit that it is probably not the most balanced one, for example I do not have a true Gras Pokémon while having 2 Water ones but trough out the gameplay you develop a certain dependency on them and do not want to throw them out. This is probably also the reason why I needed several goes against the top 4 plus champion in order to become the Pokémon champion in this game.
As I mentioned before, the Chimchar stayed in my team throughout the whole journey! It was able to evolve into Panferno which was a pretty solid Pokémon in the end! With its Fighting and Fire Attacks it was able to deal some good damage and was especially useful against the Bug-Trainer in the Top 4. His speed was pretty good as well. All in all a solid choice!
Next up was Snorlax because it is just one of my favorites! As soon as I was able to get Munchlax I made it priority number one to get it to Snorlax. It looks also pretty cool when a giant Snorlax is following you on the map. With a lot of HP this Pokémon was a great tank throughout all battles and with the additional Left-Over Item we were able to restore its health after every turn. What surprised me the most though is that the champion was able to one hit Snorlax in the final match. It really was devastating to see my Snorlax faint.
Next up we have Garchomp that is just an MVP in general. I made him learn Earthquake in order to mirror the champ’s Garchomp. Because I had so much trouble defeating it, I decided to play under the motto: If you cant beat them, join them. It took me a little bit of time to get Garchomp to level 68 but on this level this guy is just insane. I think he would be able to solo the complete top 4 if you have enough Attack Refreshers!
Now to my absolute favorites! First up we have Gastrodon. When I first saw Shellos, I just fell in love with this cute little Snail. It stayed in my team until the end and was pretty useful overall. It learned Mud-Water pretty quickly and was my Go-To move every time. The animation looked just cool in my opinion. In the end it had pretty big resilience against other opponents which is why I used it primarily for tank purposes.
Another Pokémon that could earn the title MVP is Gyarados. After painfully evolving Magikarp to level 20 you are able to get this beast of a Pokémon. Because I knew that I had a bit of an advantage in the beginning. This Pokémon stayed in my team until the end and reached level 70 by the end of it. I think it was worth the pain in the beginning. With a variety of different attacks, this guy is just an all time favorite of mine.
And now last but not least, the absolute surprise in my team. It was really surprising to me that I finished my team with this card but this Psychic-Steel Pokémon was the reason I won against the Champion. A little bit of backstory for that. In my previous tries I did not have him in my team and constantly failed on the last Pokémon. It always used Earthquake and one-hitted all of my poor guys. I decided that I will need a flying or levitating Pokémon that is not affected by it. On top of that I needed something that is resilient against Dragon attacks. In the end it took me a lot of patience and many Resurrection Potions to succeed but it was definitely worth it!
Plan Going Forward
Now that I got the taste of Pokémon back, I looked into the newest editions. And it blow me off my chair! Pokémon Violet is an open world game with real time Pokémon?! Sign me up! This is definitely something I need to play next and damn I am looking forward to it! The only thing that I need to do is to find the time to do so. Do you guys have any favorites? And how do you approach these games? Are you also to loyal to your favorites like me or are you just looking for the strongest Pokémon in the game? Maybe you can even give me some advice for the newest edition? 😊
Published by ga38jem on
Hive Gaming
On 21st January 2023