Enough about EVE Online this week, time for important topics, like Pokemon.
I have carried on in Pokemon Sun. with my pursuit of the Alola Pokedex largely because I have managed to make fairly steady progress towards finishing it off. Since I last checked in on this, I have gone from the 57% marker to 83% of the way complete.
Once again, screen shots take of the 3DS with my iPhone
In actual numbers of Pokemon I went from 173 caught at that last post to 250 caught as of last night, and increase of 77 Pokemon over a 10 day period. So I caught about 8 new Pokemon a day. That is the sort of progress that keeps you hooked, keeps you going, keeps you opening up the 3DS every night for an hour or two.
Current Pokedex details
As part of that, I managed to finish up the Melemele island Pokedex, having caught all 120 Pokemon that appear on that island, including the ones that don’t actually appear on that island or that only appear on the island in Pokemon Moon.
I “saw” all the Pokemon for the island first and was curious to see if that was enough to get credit. In past versions of the game, the regional Pokedex could be considered complete if you simply encountered all the Pokemon on the list. That doesn’t cut it for Pokemon Sun & Moon. You get a little silver crown when you have encountered them all, but you only get the gold crown and the official stamp when you have caught them all.
My stamp for Melemele… be nice if it was dated
That is one island Pokedex down and three to go.
All the Melemele Pokemon
And the other islands are pretty far along. How I have been making that sort of progress has two branches.
First, I still had a pile of Pokemon that just needed to be leveled up or traded while holding a specific item. Leveling up is fairly easy and I can do that while watching TV and not lose track of any dialog. There are plenty of Pokemon that fall into that category.
The trading while holding an item required me to get my daughter to cooperate, which wasn’t easy. Eventually, after days of “I don’t want to do it right now” and “I don’t know where it is, I’ll look for it later” I had to make her find her 3DS and hand it over so I could do the trades myself. That was something of a bonanza day. I took that oppotunity to pass Solgaleo and Lunala, the legendaries from Sun & Moon, back and forth between our games so we each have both covered.
I still have a number of Pokemon where I haven’t obtained the item yet, so couldn’t to the trade. More work to do on that front, but that generally just involves some patience and a tolerance for a lot of wild Pokemon encounters.
But there are always some Pokemon that are difficult to obtain or where how to obtain them is not clear. (The Alola Pokedex site I have been using has been wrong, or at least at odds with the official guide, on some Pokemon such as Tirtouga.) For those I have been relying on the Global Trade Station.
The GTS continues to be very good to me, and players in Japan especially so. I would not be nearly as far along as I am had I not had access to it. However, one of the long standing features of the GTS, something from the Pokemon Diamond & Pearl era, is that you cannot ask to trade for a Pokemon that you have not seen yet. If you haven’t seen it, you don’t know about it, you can’t ask for it. If it is just a generic blue Pokeball icon on your island Pokedex or question marks on the main list, you have to find a way to see it.
That icon, I don’t know about THAT Pokemon
Now, to be fair, the game is very good about showing you lots of Pokemon, generally via battles with all the trainers you pass by during your travels. This is why it is important to not skip fights. I got lazy for a bit and bypassed a couple of optional areas during the main story line, something I am paying for now. It wouldn’t be hard to go back and do those fights now… my main party is all up past level 70 at this point, with my Snorlax at 80… it is more a matter of figuring out what I skipped. There are even a few Pokemon that NPCs should have given me along the way that I somehow missed. Sloppy.
However, Nintendo has something of a back door for dealing with Pokemon you haven’t seen yet. If you have a friend that has seen the Pokemon in question, they can display a QR code on their screen, which you can use the camera on your 3DS to capture. That gives you credit and you can now trade for that Pokemon.
Of course, if you are like me and have no real life friends playing Pokemon (or a child that won’t do that grunt work for you), the internet will provide. Over on Reddit there is a post about QR codes for Pokemon. This links out to several galleries on Imgur.com that have the QR codes. So when I really wanted to setup a trade for a Pokemon, I went and used that. See, you don’t need friends when you have the internet!
Of course, even with all of that you need to have something to trade. I started out breeding Dratinis, the first evolution that leads to the ever popular Dragonite Pokemon.
Dratini to Dragonair to Dragonite
That seemed to be a popular enough Pokemon to get me trades. The evolution process just requires leveling it up and Dragonite is a strong Pokemon. However, you can simply catch Dratinis in the game, so I wasn’t sure this was my strongest play. But I used one to get my hands on a Sliggoo, the middle evolution of three that is more difficult to obtain.
The Sliggoo progression
Then I started breeding that, which is the only way to get its first evolution, Goomy, and then started trading those. They seemed to be a hit and I seemed to be able to get any trade I asked for… though I am always conservative on that front… in no time at all. Plus the Sliggoo was friendly with my breeing Ditto, and that relationship dictates how fast eggs are produced, so I was trading away.
Some trades
That Gabite was a big trade for me, as it is another annoying one to get in the game. Having a bit of backstock on Goomy, I switch the Gabite in to breed… also friendly with my Ditto… and started getting eggs for that.
Now the Isle Avue, the hot springs island in the Poke Pelago where you can leave eggs to hatch rather than dragging them around in your party for 5K to 20K steps, is filling up with eggs.
Eggs waiting to hatch… hope they don’t hard boil…
Once those start hatching I am looking at a weekend of trading to further my cause. So long as I keep making progress, I should be able to keep focused.
Of course, eventually I will get to the last hairy few, the difficult ones. Back when I did the then 485 strong National Pokedex in Pokemon SoulSilver I spent quite a bit of time getting those last few, with the last one requiring an item to be held to evolve. And then I went the full completionist and got the last two for the full 493 achievement which required me to play Pokemon Ranger: Guardian Signs to acquire a Manaphy to transfer over to SoulSilver so I could breed it to get a Phione.
I am not sure I have that much fortitude anymore. I should be able to hang tough through the Alola Pokedex. I haven’t given up yet. The full National Pokedex though, which stands at 802 Pokemon as of now, that might be too much to ask.
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