Fun Fact Friday!
Players of Pokémon, hear me, today's Fun Fact Friday is for you!
(Not the card game, I'm sorry.)
If any of you play the Pokémon games, you might know how ridiculously easy the games have become throughout the years. From when I first started playing Pokemon Blue and losing to my rival in the first battle, to playing Pokemon Y and beating my rival in a few measly moves. The games have taken a (slight) turn for the easy.
NOTE: I might find the games easier because I'm older, wiser and actually know type advantages and all that as compare to my preteen self. It certainly doesn't help that I heavily investigate the worlds and concoct the optimum team before I even start playing the game. And I'm sure I don't need to mention the use of index cards to keep track of my teams EV training. Yes, Pokemon is very different to me now than when I used to play it.
Now, I know there are a lot of various ways people play to make the game more difficult. I personally have almost always incorporated a simple No Fainting Rule, so I'm always overly cautious with potions and trips to the Pokemon center. However, critical hits get me every time. No, but there is one level of difficulty that many of my friends like to play with that is very well known. This, of course, is the Nuzlocke Challenge.
I know a lot of you have heard of the Nuzlocke challenge, I know some of my friends play it a lot. If you haven't, read about it, because I'm not explaining it here; why? Because I don't do it.
Call me a wimp, but I don't do it. Instead I have a different variation to talk about today.
The first thing I'd like to say, is that Pokémon Y is amazing and you should all buy it. It is great, the graphics are well beyond any previous version, the story (while still very out there) actually means something, and the Pokémon really come to life thanks to new features and graphics again.
Also note, there are
NO SPOILERS HERE. Continuing on...
When I first learned about Pokémon X and Y, I knew I was going to get Y; why? Well, I'm a boy and I have a Y chromosome. That was enough of a reason for me.
Now, I knew that I wanted to make this new version different somehow and I was struggling on how to do that. How can I make this version special to me? After about a month of thinking (thank goodness spoilers didn't really come out during that time), I knew what I was going to do.
I was going to refrain from looking ANYTHING up about this version. I was going to play Pokémon Y just like I used to when I was a preteen.
Now that that was decided, I now had to wait many days and avoid any website that threatened spoilers. The only things I knew prior to getting the game was new upgrades to the game and what the starter Pokémon were based off of. This was one thing that I did to make Pokémon Y more difficult for me.
There was one more thing that I did prior to getting the game. I looked up one thing so I could perform my preferred variation of play. I looked up all the types used by gym leaders and elite four, and I wrote down the UNUSED types. With this list of six unused types, I picked my favorite type, DARK, and assumed the role of an aspiring gym leader. I call this variation of play (unsurprisingly):
The Gym Leader Challenge
What you do is you pick one type of Pokémon. And, as soon as you can, you create a team where each Pokémon on your team has that type (or will have that type once they evolve).
For me, this method has given me a chance to really explore the Pokémon world and use different kinds of Pokémon out there. It also makes it a fun challenge fighting as if you were a gym leader (for me at least). The specific rules for it I have already said:
1) Pick a type. Use only Pokémon that have the chosen type, or will have the chosen type.
NOTE: You can pick any type, I just choose to pick whichever type is not represented in that generation. That is optional.
A few exceptions, and only use them if absolutely necessary.
*You only need this team for battles. This means, you can have HM hogs for traveling the world, but once you get where you want to go, you need to get your team back together. Also, given the wide variety of Pokémon these days, I found that in Pokémon Y I didn't need to have any HM hogs. An all dark team was varied enough that I knew the HMs I needed when I needed to know them.
*For the first gym or two you might not be able to acquire Pokémon of the chosen type. If you absolutely can't, don't worry about it. Just get them ASAP. I was fortunate to acquire and entire team of Dark type Pokémon before I battled the second gym leader.
How has this changed my Pokémon adventures? Amazingly!
I actually catch Pokémon now, and train various types of Pokémon. I found myself bonding with unusual Pokémon simply to keep more Pokémon on my team. Sure, you could have two really strong Pokémon of that type, but if one trainer is strong against you, you are out of luck. The previous times I've done this, I've had a blast. I used Poison, and Steel.
It really adds a sense of danger when you face a trainer that is your weakness. It is fun, and adds a new challenge to the game.
If this is something you might be interested in, I suggest you try it out. I currently have a team composed of:
Absol (You will hear about Absol later...)
Sneasel
Malamar
Bisharp
Yveltal (I was SO glad when I found that this was Dark type)
*Honchkrow*
I have Greninja, Deino and Spiritomb to choose from but I'm probably going to use Honchkrow because all of the above, and the Honchkrow I caught with Luxury balls. I picked Luxury balls because I am a Dark type gym leader, the balls should match. That was an extra stipulation, but it was another fun challenge as well.
I've said enough, I hope you found this fun fact entertaining, at the very least you learned a little bit about me.
Happy Friday!
