Pokémon Soul Silver journal - entry four

I’ve beaten both Jasmine and Pryce. Even though I did level up my fire-types before facing Jasmine, she still put up a decent fight. It was a bit lopsided, however. Her Magnemites didn’t do much of anything, with her Steelix being the main contender. On the other hand, Pryce and everyone in his gym were pushovers. I don’t think that would have been the case if I had not chosen Cyndaquil as my starter, but my fire and electric types made short work of all the ice and water types in his gym.

Speaking of my team, the current lineup consists of a now-Typhlosion, the red Gyarados, Umbreon, Magmar, Magneton, and Raikou. I haven’t been relying on the thunder God dog much, since he is a level 40, and my Magneton has better pure electric type moves. Magmar is proving to be quite the offensive powerhouse, though his HP and defense are lacking a bit. I’m quite content with his move set now, so I may end up leaving him with the Day Care Couple for a while just to improve those stats. Should that end up being the case, I’ll probably bring Poliwag and Flaffy out of Bill’s PC in order to level them up to the point of evolving into Poliwhirl and Ampharos respectively.

I had forgotten how high of an HP Typhlosion gets past level 36. His defensive capabilities are far from impenetrable – frankly, Umbreon still has him beat in that regard. Still, he was a great starter Pokémon for my style of play. The red Gyarados came with a sweet move set when I caught him. I’ve mixed it up a bit to accommodate for Surf and Ice Fang, but he’s just as much a powerhouse as Magmar, except Gyarados has considerably better defense.

Perhaps I am mistaken, but it seems like there is more of a story in the DS remakes than was present in the original Gold and Silver Gameboy releases. I do recall the Team Rocket escapades, but I honestly can’t remember Lance showing up to help me in the Gameboy version. Either way, I did enjoy fighting alongside his Dragonite. I really enjoy Lance as a character. I also bent the rules in Team Rocket’s Mahogany Town hideout a bit – when Lance said he didn’t want to harm the Electrodes but informed me that we had to in order to stop the radio signal, I caught one of them in a Pokéball. I have no idea how much I will end up using it, but I’m one step closer to catching them all (and being the very best, like no one ever was).