Weekend Plans in the Hoenn Region

Despite the main thread of any given Pokemon game being a solitary endeavor, part of the fun of playing Pokemon for me has been playing with my daughter.  As with much of gaming, having somebody to talk with and share the experience with enhances the whole experience.

Which explains why Pokemon has tapered off for me.  Aside from a burst of time earlier this year playing Pokemon Blue, I haven’t really got out the 3DS for anything aside from the monthly distribution events.

My daughter also finds having people around her who play Pokemon stimulates her interest in the game, though for her that comes mostly from her peers at school.  In middle school her circle of friends had little or no interest in Pokemon, so she stopped playing and thus so did I.

So while we bought copies of the last major Pokemon release two years back, neither of us finished the game.

My daughter started the game, but then stopped just two gym badges in.  I kept going for a while, hoping to lure her back.  But she wasn’t interested, something that killed my interest, and so I left off after six gym badges.

Lately though my daughter, now in high school, has started hanging out with a happy group of friends who are into video games.  And while that has gotten her to play League of Legends (Lord help me) another game on the list is Pokemon.  One of her friends has been bugging her to finish up Pokemon Omega Ruby, to the point that she actually picked it up this week and has quickly caught up to me, with six gym badges and now just arriving in Lilycove City.

So, of course, I had to take up the 3DS as well to see if I could figure out where I left off.  The path though the Hoenn Region is a complicated.

Hoenn region

Fortunately, I bought the accompanying strategy guide available for the game, so I can follow that through and hopefully figure out where I should be headed after a long stay in Lilycove City.

And the goal for the weekend is to get through to the Elite Four and finish up the game.  The real question is how much do I want to cheese through the end?  Having downloaded all those legendary and mythical Pokemon this year, I have a small army of level 100 Pokemon that I can control once I get that 8th gym badge.  We shall see how I feel when I get there, but I would like to wrap the game up before next Friday when Pokemon Sun & Moon should arrive.