Today’s game is Pokemon Emerald. I’ve been kind of wanting to play through this ever since I saw FRLG were getting released. I have nostalgia for this one because it was my first Pokemon game. I didn’t grow up with it being my generations Pokemon, but I remember loading it onto an emulator on my old phone, and having to speed run it under a week in Middleschool. I had an iPhone then, and if I didn’t speed through then the “certificate” would expire and id be stuck without and my save gone.
Anyways, because of that I’ve played this game so many times. It’s one of my favorite of the old generation of games, and setting it up under an emulator helped breathe some new life into it. I had wanted to pick up a GBA and a Flash Cart and play it that way, but I got a little impatient so this works too.
There’s not much to show in games like this, so I’ll just say that I made it past the 3rd Gym. Younger me would be proud seeing this kind of progress in one day. But because of this lack of interesting stuff today will be a bit shorter with less pictures and more talking.
Now that I’m not on a timer, I want to fill out the Pokédex. It’s been a goal I’ve been working on in the background to fill out the National Dex in Pokemon Home with all the Native Pokemon from their respective regions. I’m doing this by using a modded 3DS to transfer it all up, hopefully before the Pokemon Bank servers shut down. So far I have Platinum, Black and White, and I had started XY (But gave up as something bothers me about them so I’ll come back later)
I also enabled Retro Achievements which makes this more fun. It’s like having a checklist to full 100% which is a fun experience. I just wish there was 3DS integration so I could play that way and make it truly portable. I’ll take what I can get though as this is fun. I ended off my night just by looking at the page to see what all so I can do.
Nice, totally with you on using RA as a checklist for these games (especially after multiset). It feels a bit more guided, especially as they add more and more gimmicks over the years. In post game, it's practically essential.
White 2 is still kicking my butt because it's just so, so much stuff. Emerald at least is probably a bit more tame. I've still got to beat battle subways, star in movies, beat the Elite 4 with every type, and do every post game tournament including battles with all previous games gym leaders... Plus a 400+ Pokemon capture/evolve/breed list which is just the White 2 only dex entries.
I like when achievements act as a checklist, while having a good balance as well of fun little challenges to do. I think a lot of games just either through difficult challenges at you or make them landmarks. It’s hard to find an inbetween game.
I’ve yet to tackle White 2. I did white 1 and completed the Unova Dex, and checked what else I’d need. Immediately saw everything and went “you know what… I’ll come back later”
Yeah, it's my first time with it. Even as a check list it's an insane amount of content. I'll need a detox with something smaller afterwards!
Also, I like the hard stuff but subsets help keep that sorted so it doesn't scare people away. White 2 has a challenge mode that was bugged at release but the RA patch fixes it. It's not too hard and it's kinda fun being challenged in Pokemon for once since I used to play competitively and actually know some strategy, haha.