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JonCole

Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver

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I keep hearing that it's better than Diamond/Pearl. I never finished Diamond. Should I bother with Soulsilver, even though souls don't exist?

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It's coming slowly on Amazon's free delivery, man I'm cheap...

Gold was by far my favourite of the series (and still is). It just is probably the best example to me of a pretty strictly "game" game having a good if not perfect sequel.

Probably was down to a mix of adding so much (attaching items, 2 world maps (!) where you REVISIT the last game's places! lots of HM's and exploration, and clock! repetitive rival battles! phone calls, which were a little odd...I did like the later trainer-rebattle-item as an alternative I gues) which then got removed in later games, or sometimes added back in much later.

It also had amazing AI (for the time, if not now) from what I recall - it was battle-tower like AI for most trainers, no more random attacks as in Red and Blue! This game actually made the normal trainer battles both fun and a challenge. The Elite 4, even at so low a level were hard if I remember rightly :) Red was insanely hard, unless he ran out of PP on moves. I mean, one of the Gym leaders had a Dynamic Punch/Lock On combo, and USED IT TO KICK MY OWN ASS. I also remember Slowbro in the Elite Four wasting me with Curse, and Umbreon being an annoying Dark staller. I wonder how many of these survived to the DS edition.

Actually this is one of the main things that went backwards. Apart from the "Final elite 4 person", most trainers basically sucked, even if they got more or less predictable in Gold and Silver due to the fact they always sent out the most effective matchups in battle. They changed pokemon mid-battle much more too (Lance kept doing this if you send out ice types, he'd get out his Charizard, the git...).

More multiplayer battle stuff too, like an instance of having your last battler copied so the AI could play them in that special trainer battle area kind of was the first "Battle tower" like thing too. Man that was fun since I had a cousin who cheated to get insanely high level, underlevelled ubers with mis-matched moved and the AI kicked my ass compared to him until I cheesed them, heh. I wonder if that still exists (not likely, heh).

Also added Dark and Steel (although plainly not enough of either type considering some of the Gym's uses of them), and sorted the Ghost type, pretty much standardising the matchup charts and some balance issues with Psychics by making Special 2 stats like attack/defence.

The fact it was a large world map, plus not "too many" pokemon (man it's too many now), meant it fell well (but not over) populated, fun to explore and so forth, lots of little nuggets of interesting areas (hidden places over sea, through bits you can chop down, waterfalls etc.) - it was a leap ahead of Red and Blue there. At least this was mainly retained in the sequels.

I could go on for ages, so many great bits of design and some really fun ideas implemented so early on in the series - and still never have bothered to raise something to level 100 properly. Closest is my current level 80's...maybe one day...one day. Defiantly will be great for the bus. Glad some others here like it too.

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Jesus! What games??? I need them for my bachelor pad.

"Tiki Lounge, Martin Denny records and electronic games, babe. Wink. Oh, yeah...that bookcase folds out into a heart-shaped bed.

Sonic 2 and Wii Fit. The circumstances were very different for these occurrences.

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Ok, I bought Soul Silver yesterday, and although I'm not particularly far in (2 hours) - it reaally doesn't feel like Silver. Does anybody else have this... well, problem? It just doesn't feel right.

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So I have heart gold, yet no working DS. Second hand DSi ordered which hopefully will arrive tomorrow, did I buy a DSi for Gold alone, kind of, Goldensun DS should be out this year also.

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So I have heart gold, yet no working DS. Second hand DSi ordered which hopefully will arrive tomorrow, did I buy a DSi for Gold alone, kind of, Goldensun DS should be out this year also.

My DS recently had broken sound. Thank God, I have a backup DS for just this occasion.

Geodude, represent!

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This talk of broken DS's is reminding me I've neglected my DS for a long time, which is egregious, because I have such affection for the platform. Time to whip it out and play some Bangai-O Spirits. By the way, if you have a DS and don't own that game, you're dumb.

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So I have heart gold, yet no working DS. Second hand DSi ordered which hopefully will arrive tomorrow, did I buy a DSi for Gold alone, kind of, Goldensun DS should be out this year also.

Should've done what I did man, and just buy a Lite. 3DS later this year dude!

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Should've done what I did man, and just buy a Lite. 3DS later this year dude!

Not a fan of the design of the lite. Plus I want the downloadable games sooner rather than later. Which is also disregarding that the 3DS is likely to come to Europe later than this year.

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Damn this game is as good as I remembered. The additions are great, I'd probably say this is the most complete Pokemon game released. the Pokewalker is kind of weird though, particularly as you can only gain one level from a walk. So say if I went on a walk of more than 4 miles I am almost guaranteed a level for any Pokemon, though if I walk 8 I get the same reward, neglecting the watts concept. I guess overall it's a good thing to get kids to exercise more though.

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I ordered Soul Silver yesterday, and my girlfriend is really excited for us to play it together. So much so that we spent most of the day today playing Pokemon Snap on the Virtual Console in anticipation. She did ask me one thing about it that I am unqualified to answer though, so I'll put it to you folks. The pokemon in this game, are they the set from the original Gold/Silver, or have they added in all the newer, crappier pokemon from the later games?

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She did ask me one thing about it that I am unqualified to answer though, so I'll put it to you folks. The pokemon in this game, are they the set from the original Gold/Silver, or have they added in all the newer, crappier pokemon from the later games?

You don't liek mudkips? Also: your girlfriend seems really awesome; you're lucky. If I had a girlfriend who got excited about things like Pokemon, I'd...well...I don't know what I'd do. But I'd do something. That's for sure.

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It's pretty much just Pokemon and Sonic for her. She gets motion sick very quickly with anything 3d. The Virtual Console is great because we can play all sorts of older SNES and Genesis games, and so the Streets of Rage, Golden Axe, and Final Fight series have also become mainstays, but that's about it. Consoles after 1996 kind of made themselves impossible for her to enjoy with all their "hey! Let's make every damn thing 3D now!" But damn, she freaking LOVES pokemon. Like, two years ago she went as a pikachu for halloween. I put together a pokemon trainer costume to match, and we convinced a friend to be a psyduck. That was an awesome party.

EDIT: And no, I do not, in fact, liek mudkips. It just kind of feels like after the Gold/Silver batch, they stopped trying to make interesting pokemon. There are a few good ones in each batch (I have a piplup sitting on my desk in front of me. Love that dude.) but for the most part they just feel half-assed now.

EDIT EDIT: Proof of desk piplup:

4485612781_8e40282835.jpg

Edited by miffy495

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I ordered Soul Silver yesterday, and my girlfriend is really excited for us to play it together. So much so that we spent most of the day today playing Pokemon Snap on the Virtual Console in anticipation. She did ask me one thing about it that I am unqualified to answer though, so I'll put it to you folks. The pokemon in this game, are they the set from the original Gold/Silver, or have they added in all the newer, crappier pokemon from the later games?

Yeah, unfortunately, all 493(ish) shitty Pokémon are in there. Well, apart from the, like, 250-ish awesome Pokémon (and the included 151 AMAZING Pokémon).

I think that's whats got me so bummed about Soul Silver - I'm like at the second gym, and thanks to the Pokéwalker, I've already got a Kangaskhan. That's not right people, I shouldn't be able to get a lvl 10 Kangaskhan.

I don't know why - Silver is still my favourite Pokémon game - but SoulSilver is seriously letting me down.

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I ordered Soul Silver yesterday, and my girlfriend is really excited for us to play it together. So much so that we spent most of the day today playing Pokemon Snap on the Virtual Console in anticipation. She did ask me one thing about it that I am unqualified to answer though, so I'll put it to you folks. The pokemon in this game, are they the set from the original Gold/Silver, or have they added in all the newer, crappier pokemon from the later games?

I have 7 gym badges, I have not encountered any Pokemon from the 3rd or 4th generation yet, though the games are entirely compatible with pearl, platinum and diamond.

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I just realized I had killed the 7th gym leader (the ice guy) before the 5th and 6th. No wonder he was giving me so much trouble, aside from the fact that he has two pokemon that constantly use Rest and Snore.

It's kind of weird that they decided to not keep you from getting to the 7th leader before the others. Was it like that in the original gold/silver?

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I just realized I had killed the 7th gym leader (the ice guy) before the 5th and 6th. No wonder he was giving me so much trouble, aside from the fact that he has two pokemon that constantly use Rest and Snore.

It's kind of weird that they decided to not keep you from getting to the 7th leader before the others. Was it like that in the original gold/silver?

Yes, All 3 are beatable at any point in any order. The game directs you to do the one on the island first.

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For anyone far enough into the game, how many balls do you typically use to catch a legendary? I am finding it taking far more than I remember using on the legendaries in Diamond and earlier games, but friends of mine are having an easy time catching all of them. Like, one friend of mine used only 3 or 4 ultra balls on Lugia where it took me 30+. Another used 2 poke balls. :| It has taken me 20+ ultra balls on every legendary I've caught, usually over 30. Suicune (only level 47 or so) took 60 ultra balls. Am I just really unlucky? This is just baffling me as I do the same things anybody does to catch a legendary (paralyze it and get it's HP down to 1).

Also, the level curve once you get 16 badges is ridiculous. The elite four champion has level 70+ pokemon, none of mine were above 60 when I got the 16th badge (now I have 2 60+'s but still). So I haven't re-challenged them yet, been mostly going around trying to get the legendaries and other pokemon I haven't caught while doing a bit of grinding.

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For anyone far enough into the game, how many balls do you typically use to catch a legendary? I am finding it taking far more than I remember using on the legendaries in Diamond and earlier games, but friends of mine are having an easy time catching all of them. Like, one friend of mine used only 3 or 4 ultra balls on Lugia where it took me 30+. Another used 2 poke balls. :| It has taken me 20+ ultra balls on every legendary I've caught, usually over 30. Suicune (only level 47 or so) took 60 ultra balls. Am I just really unlucky? This is just baffling me as I do the same things anybody does to catch a legendary (paralyze it and get it's HP down to 1).

Also, the level curve once you get 16 badges is ridiculous. The elite four champion has level 70+ pokemon, none of mine were above 60 when I got the 16th badge (now I have 2 60+'s but still). So I haven't re-challenged them yet, been mostly going around trying to get the legendaries and other pokemon I haven't caught while doing a bit of grinding.

Dropping their speed and defense can help too

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If you go to the Nintendo WFC option in Mystery Gift you can get a new pokewalker route called Yellow Park (pee joke) where you can catch Flying Pikachus. I think it's only available until the end of April.

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I asked a coworker who does tournaments about EV training and the stuff he does blows my mind. He's played through Diamond 17 times and Platinum over 30. I've sunk a lot of time into pokemon games but I didn't know it could reach this sort of obsessive hobby (if you wanna call it that) level.

What I do appreciate is how Nintendo seems to have embraced the tournament aspect of the games that came about as the result of wi-fi in Diamond and Pearl. My coworker was saying that lots of changes made in SS/HG were for tournament play.

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I asked a coworker who does tournaments about EV training and the stuff he does blows my mind. He's played through Diamond 17 times and Platinum over 30. I've sunk a lot of time into pokemon games but I didn't know it could reach this sort of obsessive hobby (if you wanna call it that) level.

What I do appreciate is how Nintendo seems to have embraced the tournament aspect of the games that came about as the result of wi-fi in Diamond and Pearl. My coworker was saying that lots of changes made in SS/HG were for tournament play.

Yeah, it gets pretty intense. EV training isn't even that difficult, the hard part is breeding (tens and tens of times) for IVs and natures, which has been much refined in the most recent games but still remains a completely cumbersome process.

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So, my girlfriend actually managed to murder a Pokemon, by putting it in the Pokewalker then accidentally putting it through the washing machine. Suppose that's Pokeslaughter rather than murder.

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