Bugsy

My next order of business was to head to Azelea Town to face the next Gym Leader, Bugsy.

Along the way, I came across a research site called The Ruins of Alph.

The Ruins of Alph are one of the mysteries of the World of Pokemon.

The name is one of the biggest mysteries. 

What is Alph?

Is it short for Alpha? Is it the remnants of what they were going to do while the game was still in Alpha?

Maybe it's short for Alphabet, since all the Pokemon there look like letters.

Whatever it is, they have been investigating it for 10 years...

...and they still have no idea what it is.

Do you know how to unlock the secrets of the ruins?

You have to complete this 16 piece puzzle.

You, my friends, are talking to the 11-year-old boy who unlocked the secrets!

Well, I discovered at least one secret, there are ancient Pokemon.

This  means they were not created as a result of recent nuclear war.

So, I then went and saved Bugsy's entire city from the clutches of the evil band of thieves, Team Rocket. That was rather easy.

I then wandered around and fought some wild Pokemon to train for my battle with Bugsy.

After a while of training, I had this sobering, guilty realization:

If I knock a wild Pokemon unconscious,

who takes it to the Pokemon Center?

Does it die?

Anyways, trained up, beat Bugsy.

I may have forgotten I chose Cyndaquil.

The bugs were easy.

Upon leaving the city, I ran into my rival.

Hopefully you people enjoy my Star Trek humor.

I've learned that one of the things I missed out on, and never even thought about in the past was naming. When I played through Pokemon as a child, I named my character after me, my rival Gary, and gave no nicknames to any of my Pokemon. I figured I wouldn't miss out on it this time.

Anyways, every game has a rival who you fight several times throughout the course of the game. He's generally at least one step ahead of you in everything and loves to make you feel like crap. 

In this one, he's a long-red-haired thief who apparently hates all that is weak. Apparently he is also a hater of Team Rocket.

He said that team rocket is strong, but if you take them on one-by-one, they are weak.

Seeing as the desire to fight apparently renders people immobile in this universe, it's actually really easy to take on Team Rocket one-by-one.

So, I defeated my rival, and went on my merry way.

PC

So, I've been thinking about the futuristic technology in this game.

Among this technology is the PC: I used it all the time, but I never really though about what it did.

So let me explain them to you here.

Bill created and gave us access to a PC that stores our Pokemon... stores hundreds of Pokemon on some central server and gives us complete access to them from any computer in the whole world, like some sort of organic dropbox.

My character has a PC that stores all of my possessions and grants me a similar dropbox-esque universal access.

Professor Oak gave me a PC that has a very special function... it tells me how my Pokedex is doing.

Thanks Oak...

Violet City

The more I play this game, the more I'm beginning to accept the theory that the world of Pokemon was previously devastated by a nuclear war.
Oh, not so much for the giant monsters... but it's these people.
The only thing that could produce people this weird is nuclear fallout.

For starters, my mom...

What gives her the right?!

And what about this guy?
Did the radiation start turning him into his bird Pokemon?

Here's what a bird keeper looks like in real life...

Notice the lack of Mohawk.

Photo Credit

 And what is a Pokemaniac? He likes Pokemon?
Don't we all? What makes him so special?

I play this game too much.
Does that make me a Pokemaniac?

And finally, why should I fear this bug catcher?

How do bug Pokemon even compete? 

Wouldn't they just get squashed by the other Pokemon?

Unless they've mutated to be incredibly huge... or powerful!

Can you imagine a giant Caterpie? Or  Spinarak fighting back? *Shudder*

I finally make it to Violet City.

The northern part of the city has a tower built around a giant Bellsprout (or so the legend says).

The whole tower is filled with people who worship the Bellsprout, and who own many smaller Bellsprouts of their own. They were all willing and ready to battle me and they served as great training for my Cyndaquil.

After training with the plant worshippers, I finally get the chance to battle Falkner, the famed bird trainer and the first Gym Leader I face.
So for those who didn't already know, the world of Pokemon is peppered with Gym Leaders. Each region as divided up in the games generally contain 8 Gym Leaders that get incrementally more difficult as the game progresses. They each lead a gym and have several followers who you fight before getting a chance to face the gym leader.
Once you defeat the gym leader, they give you a badge. These badges earn you respect among trainers and your Pokemon, giving you special abilities.

I earned my badge. =)

As I make my way south to explore Union Cave and make my way into the rest of the Jhoto region, I meet this guy hanging out at the entrance.

I can see why you would think so... this cave is rather empty.

Except for that guy

Not to rip on him, but he's obviously blind, he hangs out in caves, he doesn't appear to be wearing a shirt... and I can't see any pants on him.

And what's up with his belly?

Does it point upwards?

Welcome to Pokemon!

Welcome to the world of Pokemon!
A post-apocalyptic world full of radioactive monsters... or so the fan theories say.

There are no animals like you or I know. In their place are creatures known as Pokemon.
(Pokemon is both the singular and plural form of the word.)
You will find many similarities between animals and Pokemon, but you will also find that they are very different.

Wild Pokemon are generally hostile and will attack people or other Pokemon if provoked, but they are much easier to train than regular animals.

They can be taught different moves to attack other Pokemon and they can generally remember 4 at a time.

The story begins in a quaint village called New Bark Town.

Scenic lakeside New Bark Town consists of 3 small houses and a state-of-the-art Pokemon research laboratory.

By proximity, my mother and I have become close friends with Professor Elm, one of the leading experts in Pokemon.

One day, he calls upon me for a very important mission. 

The fate of the world and all the people and Pokemon in it lays on the shoulders of one eleven-year-old boy.

Yes... I named myself Spock.

Professor Elm offers me one of his three treasured rare Pokemon and sends me on my way to meet a friend of his, Mr. Pokemon, and receive further instruction.

Mr. Pokemon?

Either his name is an unfortunate coincidence, a nickname given due to his extensive work in the field of Pokemon research, or maybe an ancestor of his was the first to discover/create Pokemon and named the creatures/species after himself.

Either way, he must be very important, because someone went out of their way to place a sign in the middle of the road telling us where his house is.

Along the way, I meet strange men, with terrible pickup lines;

On my journey to Mr. Pokemon's house and throughout the game, I begin facing the two scenarios that will plague me throughout the entire game:

1. While walking through grass, I will inadvertently provoke a wild Pokemon, initiating a battle.
   These battles result in either my Pokemon fainting, that Pokemon fainting, or me catching that Pokemon with a device called a Pokeball, after which, I may train it as my own.
2. I step into the line of sight of a triggerhappy child and begin a Pokemon Battle.
   A Pokemon Battle consists of my Pokemon fighting the enemy's Pokemon.
   We bet money on the fight. If I win, I send some of my money home to Mom for safekeeping.

When I finally get to Mr. Pokemon, I meet a colleague of his, Professor Oak. 

Professor Oak, basically plays Professor Elm's part in the first generation.

Professor Oak isn't the most competent person around... in fact, at the beginning of Pokemon Red and Blue he admits that he can't even remember his grandson's name.

So, they give me an egg. He says the discovery of an egg is unprecedented. 

So, I guess they've never seen an egg before? 

Maybe they didn't know that Pokemon lay eggs? 

Have they gone all this time not knowing how Pokemon reproduce? 

Nobody ever thought to observe? Well... it is a kids game. Maybe they felt uncomfortable.

Or maybe the nuclear radiation killed off all of earth's natural creatures, and these Pokemon are a genetically engineered replacement. The discovery of an egg may have similar prominence to the discovery of hatched eggs in Jurassic Park in that they thought the creatures couldn't reproduce, but it has now been proven that they can!

Whatever the reason, because these weirdos have never seen an egg, I  have to walk around with this thing in my pocket, taking up all sorts of space until it hatches.

And so I begin my great Pokemon journey... as a babysitter.

Pokemon: The 90's Staple

Gotta catch 'em all! How many are there now? 718 or so...

I remember back when there were 150... I honestly never even caught all 150.

I wasn't your star trainer... in fact, I was probably below average...

But I thought this game rocked!

Photo Credit

Pokemon is the staple childhood game of kids born in the 90's.

I was no exception. I played the first 3 generations during my childhood.

In my opinion, the greatest generation was the second.

Pokemon Gold and Silver were huge advancements on the original trilogy.

It gave us a whole new foreign region to explore while still letting us relive the nostalgia of our former home. It practically doubled the number of pokemon we had access to, and added a whole slew of new items and tools. It also didn't overdo it on the new ideas like subsequent generations.

Then, they released Crystal Version.

There wasn't much of a change from its predecessors...

but the animations and color were enough.

I recently felt the need to relive these gems from my childhood.

I understand and appreciate the Nintendo DS remakes...

But I wanted to play the real thing.

I still have all my original cartridges, and my GBA to play them on, but for the sake of screenshots, I will be emulating it this time around.

So... here I am: a grown man playing Pokemon, and you'll hear my thoughts as I do.

Most of the pictures I post (of not otherwise stated) are screenshots I have taken from the game, which is copyright of Nintendo and Game Freak. I use them as part of a commentary on the game. I will occasionally post publicly available pictures as part of that commentary and will try to cite them when possible.

This is the story of Pokemon Crystal Version:

The Good, the Bad, and... the things I totally didn't pick up on when I was nine.