Poké Journal

A place for all my Pokémon ramblings.

[benkipo]

I want this to be a place where I celebrate my love for Pokémon. Can't wait for what this journey has in store!

[benkipo]

4/14 Blue Pokemon

Decided to boot up Pokemon Omega Ruby today since I've been watching a Pokemon tier list video and it put me in the Pokemon mood. It made me realize that I haven't gotten ribbons on my shiny mawile so I decided that's what I'd go do. Ended up discovering that I didn't finish everything in the game. Ran into Watson and he sent me on a little quest. It wasn't much but it also allows me to enter the second floor which I haven't been to. It's also where the ribbon lady is so that was clutch. Ended up running into a shiny voltorb! What luck! Named it Barney because I wasn't sure what to call it lol

[benkipo]

1/29 Mochi Mochi!

Finally did the prologue and it was fun. The possessed people actually were quite creepy but also super fun and cute! Loved the music that paired with it! It was quite a lot of dialogue though and very little gameplay to it, which is slightly disappointing. The Pokémon is pretty cool though! Wish there was more lore of it in game or something though. Don’t really know much about it.

With the dlc over, I gotta say I am a little disapointed. I didn’t think my expectations were too high but I definitely expected more than we got.

[benkipo]

1/21 200 Pokémon Down, 2 to Go!

Holy moly I hate how they handled the catch 200 Pokémon so that you can meet Paradox Entei and Raikou… they basically forced me to do a bunch of BBQ’s to add the starters to the biomes which you need to reach 200. It was such a slog and I didn’t enjoy it at all… glad to be done with it!

Finally got to see these two beasts even though I’ve been spoiled by Entei for awhile now. He actually looks a lot cooler in game because I thought he was mad goofy when I first saw him. Still awkward though in my opinion. In a not so charming way as the other two. Raikou definitely got the best treatment in my opinion.

Got the mythical pecha quest started which was so hard to figure out! Who would’ve known you had to go to the little shop in Kitakami?! Well anyway I’ll be saving that for tomorrow but it was so nice to see the Paldea squad again. Arvin being so respectful and kind while visiting my house is so cute. This is really such a strong trio. Can’t wait to explore with them!

[benkipo]

12/24 Indigo Diskapointment

Went through the area under Area Zero and it is visually really cool! And more complex than I thought it might be! The music in this area is nice too! Felt like a sequel to the area zero music. The Stellar terra type is a cool addition and visually also super cool! Wish I was more surprised by it but spoilers were so hard to stay away from this time around. Also beating the Stellar mons to get through the area was kinda getting a bit boring and monotonous… was a big let down after how cool Draggon’s mission was.

Love how chaotic this teacher is. She does not care about anyone’s well being, including her own. We end up meeting Terrapagos and what a surprise to see Kieran Masterball it! I don’t think anything like that has ever happened so it’s cool to see but it really does call into ethics the power of the Masterball. End up beating up Terrastalized Terrapagos. But it was a struggle! Thought I might actually lose but we got out of there!

I’m such a sucker for cutesy, cheesy cut scenes and this one hit. I don’t love Kieran but the setting and sunset hit just right.

Credits were cute. I love this style of sticker, scrapbook thing! Honestly finishing the main story of the Indigo Disk I can’t help but feel a bit let down. The Elite 4 part was way better than expected but after that it felt so short and kind of underbaked. Like it’s just capturing Terrapagos which is like okay… doesn’t do much for me lore wise or anything of that nature.

Invited some of my favorite Gym Leaders and it’s always fun to see unique dialogue. Theirs were particularly fun!

[benkipo]

12/23 Blueberry Champion

I was pumped up to use this team that I’ve been training and putting all this work into. I was so nervous how strong the opponents might be, if I even trained my team hard enough.

Well lo and behold, each trainer only used two pokemon… So it was pretty much a cake walk. Merick, the Metagross pretty much took care of them all by himself. So that was quite disappointing lol. All that time spent strategizing and training for it to be a somewhat easy and straightforward challenge.

Before taking on Drayton he allows me to swap over to my non-terrarium team. But since I was so eager to use them, I decided I would use them against Drayton. A true test for my rag tag terrarium team!

I didn’t get a chance to put my team in the Oder I would like, so it started off quite rocky. I honestly thought I was gonna lose at some points. I got unlucky but then so did he. Charizard ended up coming clutch in the end and I was able to finish off his team!

Next was to take on Kieran. I still can’t get over how he looks. The tank tops just look so bad… Anyway I take care of him with relative ease. Finally got to see the Dipplin evolution and it is wicked cool!

Get called into a meeting at Blueberry Academy for a secret mission when all of a sudden Greta and Rika pop in! So nice to see them and damn I forget how cool they look!

Our squad enters Area Zero, this time trying to go even deeper than before. It’s been so long since I’ve been down here so it’s kind of cool to come back. The theme goes so hard and definitely creates such a cool vibe for the area.

[benkipo]

12/22 Terrarium Plot Twist

Spent the first part of my day getting my newly caught Finizen to be battle ready. Which involves ev training and evolving it of course! Went around the terrarium catching and exploring while I was at it too. I gotta say the environment design for the terrarium is pretty cool. I don’t love block aesthetic but the tunnels are so windy and so cool! All the nature just has a really interesting and cool flow to it all. Finally got Finn all caught up and she looks great on the team!

I head over to Drayton’s arena to begin the challenge. Love my team and I’m so ready to finally kick some Elite 4 butt! Drayton comes over and welcomes us and even pays out entry fee. What a homie!

He walks me over to the arena to explain his elite trial. It seems like all I gotta do is beat these three trainers. Easy peasy! Oh but wait… a catch… I am to only use Pokemon caught in the terrarium by me… I have 0 Pokemon on my main team that are from this terrarium. So I pretty much had to assemble a new team for this trial… so tedious but actually kind of exciting!

I scour my pc to see all the Pokémon I’ve caught in the terrarium to get the strongest of the bunch. Well at least what I know to be strong. Since I’m not a competitive battler by any means. I end up choosing Whimsicott since I know it’s a tailwind setter which is nice since I want my Pokemon to be fast. I pick up Metagross since it’s the only psuedo I caught in here and psuedos are always strong. I pick up Duraladon since it’s also a decently strong Pokemon. Flygon because I just used one not too long ago in Omega Ruby. I also go with my recently caught shiny Milcery which I will be evolving into Alchremie. I had one more slot. But since I haven’t boosted the Pokémon diversity in the biomes yet, I wanted to do that in case it’d let me get a starter. I chose the Sahara biome since I wanted a fire starter and assumed that’s what it’d give me. And I was kinda right. When you unlock it, it says charmander available now in that biome. So I caught one and made it my final member. All to do now was to train everyone up!

As I trained I realized a few other starters were unlocked but none I’d like to use so it didn’t matter too much. It’s really cool to see them in the wild though! It’s really weird since they’re usually handed to you by the professor in a lab.

Took a hot minute but the team is trained up, natures adjusted, abilities modded, and fired up! It’s funny how it’s just 4 giant monsters and two little fairies! But I love it and hopefully we’re set up to do well against the three! I honestly think this team might be better than my actual team since there’s actually some strategy in my team composition. But we’ll see since like I said, I am no competitive battler.

Overall it is cool how they showed off some strategies you can use via trainer battles in the terrariums and how all the battles are doubles. It’s a great introduction to competitive and something they should keep up in the future!

Hopefully tomorrow I can finally take on Drayton!

[benkipo]

12/19 Celebrating my 27th Birthday!

Since it’s my birthday I decided I wanted to try to get a Destiny Mark shiny. I ended up choosing Finizen since it’s a Pokemon I love but barely used and has a fun shiny!

Searched for quite awhile but no shiny and it was getting late so I decided to just go for a normal Finizen with a destiny mark. Which is fine with me since I do think it’s a little boring to have a full shiny team.

The new Mark seeing feature is a game changer! I feel like I’m cheating a bit using it but I think it’ll be a mainstay feature going forward.

Happy to add Finn to the squad! Actually swapped Sinistcha out for it since I really wasn’t enjoying using it even though it’s a really fun Pokemon!

[benkipo]

12/18 Exploration!

Honestly didn’t really do much today. Intended on battling Drayton but never made it to him since so many things and the dam BBQ’s keep getting me side tracked! The cave area is pretty neat with the crystals and the webs!

Also reached the Polar Biome for the first time and it’s really cool! Definitely has the most different tone of the four biomes in my opinion and it was perfect at night time. I was getting sick of constantly being in the day time. Seeing Lapras in the water was such a shocker but man did it look so good!! Over world Pokémon just hit so hard!

Also got this machine since I’ve seen it in some Poketuber’s thumbnails. I like the way it looks but yeah I’m not sure exactly how good it is yet since I’m not one to really experiment with combos. Probably look it up later

[benkipo]

12/16 Soft as Steel?

Started today off with Amarys’s trial, which is a flight trial. Kind of random but they make it work. Definitely the most boring/easiest trial so far.

I know I said Crispin is my favorite but Amarys is an insanely close second. They totally nailed her design! She looks so unique and fresh! Perfect level of silly but it looks so good and purposeful that it all works. Her team is fun too! I love that they all have countermeasures for what types they’re weak against. But it was cake walk for me since Skeledirge was just constantly setting up with torch song so he pretty much one shot everything. Also love that her and Carmine are friends.

Didn’t want to take on the final Elite 4 so I just went around and explored. I noticed there were Milcery outbreaks since it’s an event for the release of Indigo Disk so decided to hunt around. Ran into one in a pretty short amount of time and caught it with relative ease!

Continued for a bit more and found 2 more!! Accidentally fainted the second one but gotta love the save feature. Failing shinies are a thing of a past but I want to be more careful going forward!

[benkipo]

12/15 Cuteness above all!

Spent a lot of time dilly dallying, grinding them BP’s. Working my way towards the next elite four member in the Coastal Biome.

Lacey was actually the first Elite 4 member I met so I guess I should’ve went to her first if I was trying to follow some sort of true order. But she was no pushover. Her team was honestly much tougher than Crispin’s. Maybe it’s just because I have 2 dragons on my team, but she really pushed my team to the end. I was forced to terastalize my dragonite or else we would’ve been in trouble!

Overall a really great battle and I enjoy her team comp quite a bit. Battling her actually reminded me that I don't have any held items on my Pokemon so I spent a bit of time after that gathering the appropriate ones for my team.

Afterwards I made my way to the Canyon Biome since Drayton is said to be the former champion. So I want to save him for last. The stair structures are crazy here in the mountainous area! Really fun! I’m really appreciating how crazy they went with the environment design for Terrarium.

Right when I was about to call it a day I spot a school of Alolamola, but one of them was slightly off colored than the rest… and of course that means shiny! If I saw it on its own I probably wouldn’t have even noticed so it’s clutch that it was in a group! I was so upset I forgot to take a screenshot of it when it was grouped up, that I accidentally fainted it… but luckily I saved right before battling! Shiny hunting is so forgiving in these new games!

Since I reset, I was able to capture a shot of it in the wild but it wasn’t as grouped as I saw it originally. Honestly if they were this spread out I might not have noticed it!

I really love that in the games, there are other Pokemon lingering around while you battle. Especially in this case with all the other Alolamola! It’s like they’re saying goodbye since they know I’m not gonna let this shiny go! End up cat co big it in a heal ball since I felt the colors matched! Named her Molly.

[benkipo]

12/14 It’s getting SPICY in here!

Started off playing with the new Synchro feature. Pretty cool! Idk how much I’ll use it but I think it’s a nice bonus and great to have. Moving on Clodsire was especially fun since she’s so derpy and his spine pops out when she attacks sometimes.

Soon after that I met up with Carmine. Had a quick battle and then caught Kieran in his new look… I love the designs and fashion for the characters this game but evil Kieran’s is awful… that might be the point but I still wish he could’ve looked cooler. The tank top that the league club wears is just so ugly.

But anyway we then run into Drayton. Pretty cool looking dude with a funny personality. He’s quite random with intention if that makes sense. I love that Carmine hates/likes him. It’s cute.

He takes me to the club room and shows me what I can do with my BP. And the thing I’m most excited for is customized throws! It’s something I’ve always wanted so glad to finally have it! Always a fan of more customization! Also the doodles on the white boards are so cute!!

I decided to grind some BBQ’s since I wanted to collect more throw options. The quest are alright but they are a little annoying that they derail me so much. And the min/maxer in me gets a little crazy about it. Also took this pick of my team while we were picnicking since one of my quest was to make a 3 or more ingredient sandwich. Which I did 3 times but it didn’t work for some reason. Unsure what I’m doing wrong here…

Also saw this Pyroar on a cliff and what a good placement and shot. Love this spawn.

Now it was time to tackle one of the first Elite 4. I didn’t know who I should tackle first but went with Crispin since he’s in the Savanah biome which is the first one you’re introduced to.

He has a fun challenge where you have to bargain for ingredients to make a super spicy sandwich. It’s super silly but I really enjoyed it for some reason! I think the npc dialogue was just really good for it. So many funny moments!

Crispin was already a favorite character design of mine when I first saw him and his personality is perfect! Definitely one of my favs so far. If only his signature Pokemon wasn’t Magmortar… He has a fun team with a wild card Exeggutor in there but it makes sense to me. He also finished with Blaziken which was totally unexpected but I love when other trainers use starters since it’s pretty rare that you see it. Starters should be quite common assuming most people get their first Pokémon the way we do in most games.

[benkipo]

12/13 Indigo Disk

Today the dlc is supposed to drop so I went ahead and booted up Scarlet to prepare for it. Put together my team consisting of Sinistcha, Clodsire, Skeledirge, Tinkaton, Baxcalibur, and Dragonite. I really wanted to fit in Kingamit but decided to go with Tinkaton instead.

I tried to remember where I left off in Kitakami and I think I was trying to defeat the masked ogre clan. So I tried continuing that. I had to look up who to talk to because I definitely couldn’t remember the guy that sent me on that quest. Apparently I had 4 more members to defeat. He gave me a clue to one: “somewhere you can glance out to the oni’s horn.” I went to the tip of the horn of Oni Mountain but couldn’t find anything. And searched all around places that could view it. Still did not find anything. Finally checked out the side of the broken horn and found a member sitting on top! Beat them and went back to the guy to get another hint. But lo and behold he still gave the same hint. I guess that member didn’t apply to that hint which makes sense to me since it didn’t seem to match either since he was on the broken horn.

Tried searching some more when I ran into this rich couple which I really had no idea about. They had fun dialogue, a but cheesy but fun. And I guess now I’m supposed to chase them around the map as well… so much map chasing… I go to Paldea to find them at a waterfall and that took me a bit and then I had to go find them somewhere “remote” between South area one and five. But I couldn’t figure it out and the Indigo Disk was ready now so I ditched it since it doesn’t seem important for now.

Got invited to Blueberry Academy and got my new uniform options which if you know me I’m always super excited for more customization. Met Lacey and she’s got a cute design. Really love the character designs in this generation. Everyone sticks out in a good way.

Also got my Indigo style card which gives me access to a bit more customization! So before going onto Blueberry academy, I went back to all the shops to see the new options. I think I spent over an hour fiddling with my new look. Wasn’t super happy with it but it’ll do.

Did a bit more of the Indigo Disk, before putting it to rest. Stopped right when I met the Synchro lady.

[benkipo]

12/6-10 Post Game

Post post game seems to pretty much be the Battle Resort which is the same as the post game in Pokemon X and Y. So not much there for me. We get some more tiny subplots and fun dialogue but pretty much it. We also get to meet Looker again so that’s fun but from what I can tell it doesn’t seem to go anywhere… not really sure what to do about it so might look it up.

[benkipo]

12/6 Delta Episode Pt.6

We finally cut to me and May at the space center. Finally enjoying our little date my parents forced me into. Really love this pic of her standing in the cutout astronaut.

We get to enjoy the Litleostar thing and of course the music is going hard here. Really playing up the feels. And I love the far away shot of us watching. And then May hits me with this line and I am hardcore blushing!! 10/10 date

We return home and man I love this scene so much. The little town that we come from. After all the craziness of saving the world, we return to our little homes and say our “see you later’s”.

I enter my door to close out the game and I couldn’t think of a better ending! I love that they really always brought us back to these small moments instead of just having us end at breaking the meteor. There’s something so grounded and homey feeling about it all and I absolutely love it. Such a perfect way to wrap it all up. Love love.

[benkipo]

12/6 Delta Eipsode Pt. 5

So on the back of Rayquaza, I ride into space! He Mega Evolves and we go full speed into the meteor! And with ease, it is destroyed!

But something seemed to come from within the destroyed meteor… a triangle. The scariest of shapes. And from behind it, Deoxys! Me and Rayquaza took it on, hoping to capture it. But Rayquaza got a little heavy handed and fainted it. I was hoping they would force me to capture it, but it didn’t seem like that was the case since the cut scene continued afterward… so I had to restart all the way before I caught Rayquaza… because there are no points to save in between… I proceeded to faint Rayquaza and Deoxys each 1 more time before finally catching it on my 3rd go! So annoying but I did it! The world is saved and I have my weird dna friend. Oh and the world is saved btw.

We return to the little side plots of everyone. Wally’s parents being so happy that he seems to be doing well (so sweet!!). Team Magma making up with one another. Dialogue was fun at first but dragged a bit… Steven and Wallace have a nice convo that definitely does play a bit into the narrative some fans say about them being gay for one another. Zinnia kinda got boring dialogue here tbh but it was alright. Did the job. And then cut to my and May’s parents conversing with one another in my own home. I loved all these little bits and they are such a big part in why I love this game. Just really feeds the soul and gives me just enough to make me feel all warm and cozy inside.

[benkipo]

12/6 Delta Episode Pt.3

Entered the Sky Pillar and had to do more following people around. All the while they give me some crazy lore in between. The building was cool but the Pokemon spawns were going crazy! And all just Claydol, Golbats, and Ariados…

I love moments like these in the game. The camera work gets a bit fancy and the music doesn’t its thing. Seriously the music in this game it’s crazy and all these small moments really make it so grand.

Facing against Rayquaza was pretty easy actually. I got it on my first catch! I suspect it is because they need you to catch it for the story… but a win is a win haha

Zinnia challenges immediately after catching Rayquaza and forcing me to put it on my team. In the lead position at that! Sorry Absol! My original team gets crazy crushed! It wouldn’t have been so bad if I wasn’t trying to avoid using Rayquaza. But they clearly wanted me to and he did one hit everything on her team.

After I beat her, she then goes on to tell me the weight of my mission. And I just love the pose and look on my character’s face! It’s so funny lol