Pokemon thoughts and announcements

Totally random Pokemon treat.

Greetings, dear fellow gamers! As you undoubtedly noticed, I've played an awful lot of Pokemon solo runs lately; so many, in fact, that this blog could easily be granted the subtitle "'The Serial Pokemon Solo Runner". I'm really not in the mood for demanding, 50-hour-long RPG epics these days: the only thing I want to play are short games with relaxing game worlds, mellow gameplay and simple rules. The Pokemon series fits this description to a T, and that's why I've been playing virtually nothing but Pokemon entries these last weeks. And my Pokemon fever is not over yet, oh nooo. In fact, I'm about to tackle a special feature, which I proudly dubbed "The Avian Solo Runs". As you may have guessed from the title alone, this is a series of runs featuring the resident bird of each region — you know, that bird that can be captured on the very first Routes and ends up being a Fly slave in most runs. I've always been extremely fond of bird 'Mons and itching to cruise more often with them, and the time is ripe to do so. I'll thus perform an avian run of each generation — bar generation I and generation VII: the former because it features the same regional bird as generation II, and the latter because I already cleared a solo run with the local bird. Stay tuned for some avian action in the weeks to come, dear fellow gamers!

Edit: Since writing that post, I learnt that the regional bird of Johto is supposedly Hoothoot rather than Pidgey. I find that notion debatable, since a) Pidgey and Spearow can also be captured on the first Routes and b) Gold and Silver were basically a remix of sorts of the gen I games and the concept of 'regional bird' was probably not a thing yet at the time. This theory is backed up by the fact that Hoothoot doesn't follow the usual Stat distribution of its supposed kind. Final forms of regional birds usually have high Attack and Speed, coupled with low defensive Stats and mediocre Sp.Attack; Noctowl, on the other hand, boasts high Sp.Attack, super-high Sp. Defense and low Attack. I'd be tempted to classify Hoothoot as a regular, non-regional bird — similar to Wingull, Farfetch'd or Ducklett — that was retrospectively branded as a regional for the sake of variety, and to assume that Pidgey is the regional bird of both Kanto and Johto; that would make perfect sense given the strong continuity between the gen I and gen II games and the fact that the two regions are basically next to one another. At any rate, I won't tackle a Hoothoot solo run of the gen II games; because as I'm writing this, I already have a Pidgey solo run of HeartGold under my belt and I really don't want to replay the whole game over again.

Yeah, I'm kinda obsessed.

And since we're talking about Pokemon and my current roaring obsession with it, I got to expand my knowledge of the games' core gameplay mechanics lately thanks to a number of really informative Youtube videos, which in turn led me to ponder a couple of technical matters that go as such:

• Knowing that EVs are raised by battling 'Mons and that each type of 'Mon delivers an EV boost in a given Stat, could a 'Mon running solo have all its EVs maxed out by the time it reaches the Pokemon League? I'd be tempted to believe that it is indeed the case, because a 'Mon that single-handedly takes down the fauna of a whole region has to get a ton of EV in all Stats. And there's another element that leads me to believe that solo runs are the perfect EV training regimen: the Effort Ribbon, which rewards a 'Mon with maxed-out EVs and which I'm quite sure I already obtained in some of my Pokemon solo runs. At any rate, I'm going to keep an eye on the Super Training feature when I tackle my avian solo run of X/Y and answer that question myself once and for all. 
• Let's say you want to comply with the series' Western tagline and resident Pokemon Professor's orders and complete the Pokedex, going after all those elusive Legendaries, 'Mons with an insanely high evasion rate and other Feebasses. Given that the amount of money obtainable in the games is limited and that you cannot grind for more and that some 'Mons require an hefty number of tries before being caught, can a player find themselves in a situation where they are totally unable to complete the Pokedex because of a lack of funds to purchase Pokeballs? I never heard of anything like that, but I'd be really curious to know if it can concretely happen. 
• Some 'Mons out there cannot be considered solo run material not because of their Stats, but rather because they appear way too late in the games to be viable candidates for solo runs. On the other hand, I've been wondering: since I own all pairs of Pokemon entries as well as extra 3DS, wouldn't it be possible to capture a late 'Mon in one of the games during a solo run, store said 'Mon, send it to the other game through trade and then tackle a solo run with it as usual? I would have to take into account matters such as the involved Mon's level and the number of Gym Badges needed to make it follow my orders; but technically, that should be possible. Now I just have to try it for myself. 

Having said that, dear fellow gamers, I'll see you soon for the first episode of my Avian Solo Run feature. I'm quite thrilled by this whole thing, and I just can't wait to revisit all generations and indulge in all sorts of feathery adventures. Until then, thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!