Change in scope

I've decided to tone it down a little bit with this blog. It kind of sucks the enjoyment out of this game, always having to make sure i have a net connection when i play, and good lighting conditions, and my camera at the ready. I was really looking forward to this game and i think from now on i'll only post text posts and not in any kind of regular pattern.

[Jubilife City] 11:01

After realising you need Surf to make the most of Oreburgh Gate, i've headed back to Jubilife, where i've been reliably informed by that detective guy that the Global Terminal is open. I've got the Memo Pad app too, seems cool.

[Oreburgh Gate] 010:50

Found this extra area north of the main Oreburgh Gate. The rock smash animation is quite cool. I picked up the poke ball you can see, it contained a Flash TM! I guess Flash isn't an HM in this version then... I've noticed the TM numbers seem to be a lot higher here, there must be a lot more than in Gen I-III.

[Oreburgh City] 010:40

My rival appeared after the gym battle. He gave me directions to the next place, which was nice of him! Looks like i'm off to Eterna City.

[Oreburgh City] 010:35

Finally i've beaten him! Mainly courtesy of my Level 22 Machop. The rest of my squad consists of a Level 16 Kadabra, a Level 15 Magikarp, a level 12 Chimchar, a level 10 Starly and a level 5 Geodude.

[Oreburgh Mine] 010:25

After a fairly long break from the game and a lot of grinding, i've finally got to the stage where i can evolve my Abra. In other news, i've also got my Magikarp to the right level where it can learn Tackle. Now off to face Roark properly! I should have no problem beating him now, armed with my Level 2¹Machop!

[Oreburgh City] 006:09

Well, it didn't work out, the Leader is a lot stronger than me. In both Kanto and Hoenn i'm sure there were a lot more training areas e.g. forests before i got to the first gym leader. Oh well, looks like a grind is in order.

[Oreburgh City] 006:00

I've spent a long time walking around trying to train up my currently useless Gyrados and Abra, but i've got bored and i'm about to challenge the first gym leader.

[Route 207] 003:15

This slope is the main thing blocking my way from getting into the sinnoh mountain range, which i am pretty excited about doing now. Unfortunately i won't get a bike til ¹or 2 badges.

[Oreburgh City] 003:06

Arrived in oreburgh city. This place is huge compared to previous settlements i've visited in sinnoh.

[Oreburgh Gate] 002:52

This gate forms the entrance to oreburgh city, and is pretty sparse, though there might be more to it through a smashable boulder.

[Ravaged Path] 002:05

This cave needs rock smash to get through. Yet another tradition, i'll have to do the first gym soon then.

[Jubilife City] 001:33

Instead of a pokénav, in this version we get a pokétch. It has various apps, i don't have many of them yet. In fact the sinnoh map is not contained within it this time, but we get back to the old "Town Map" key item.

[Jubilife City] 001:30

Finally arrived at jubilife city. I doubt there'll ever be much reason to return to sandgem. It's always the way, like with oldale town in hoenn. Meanwhile this town looks a lot like rustboro city.

[Sandgem Town] 000:53

Well after all that messing about, i finally get to explore sandgem town. It's pretty empty to be honest, but it was nice to stock up on some pokéballs and catch some local pokémon like starly and bidoof.

[Sandgem Town] 000:44

A proper scrolling Sinnoh map is displayed at the Sandgem Town pokémon centre. There are a few places i haven't heard of.

[Sandgem Town]

Now that i actually have a pokédex, it gives my first glimpse of the Sinnoh map, on a pokémon area locator subscreen.

[Sandgem Town] 000:38

I've just got my pokédex. It looks good, again very similar to the version from Generation III.

[Route 201] 000:31

As i now have a pokémon, my menu shows the corresponding option. The interface is similar to normal, with perhaps slightly better organised summary pages. However i don't like not having my front pokémon clearly displayed on the left hand side.

[Verity Lakefront] 000:26

Well Bryn had the crazy idea of going to catch a legendary Pokémon. Instead, we met this odd chap called Cyrus.

[Route 201] 000:22

Well i beat my rival, and my starter has levelled up for the first time. Strangely, i didn't get a chance to give him a nickname, so he is still just called "CHIMCHAR".

[Route 201] 000:19

Here comes my first battle against my rival! I've just got my starter pokémon, which is a chimchar. Unsurprisingly, my rival chose piplup, which has the type advantage. But that doesn't matter now, when our pokémon only know moves of the normal type.

[Twinleaf Town] 000:13

After meeting my rival ("impatient" as a description of him is an understatement) i finally get to explore my starting town of twinleaf a bit more, although i can't go much further than that at the moment.

[Twinleaf Town] 000:10

This is my pitifully small menu at this stage in the game. I'm sure more options will be added to it in the near future. I'm interested to see that each item has an icon now. Other than that, the options are very similar to previous Versions.

[Twinleaf Town] 000:06

I'm used to being able to retrieve a potion from the PC in my bedroom, but this doesn't seem possible in this version. Instead i get some info on pokémon basics. But i knew that already! The computers look a bit weird in this version incidentally.

[Twinleaf Town] 000:02

Pokémon Emerald Version notably omitted the feature to name your rival, present in all the Kanto and Johto centric games. It's nice to see this back again. I'm intrigued to see that the rival is called "friend" here; that won't last long! I always name my rival "Bryn" in pokémon games, a tradition dating back some 5 or 6 years.