Pokémon Soul Silver journal - entry two

One of my main goals in my playthrough of Soul Silver is to acquire every Eevee evolution (or at least, the five that were introduced in generations one and two). The Eevee that Bill gave me has already evolved into Umbreon, and I left it with the Day Care couple long enough for it to breed with Ditto. Which is the only reason I even caught a Ditto in the first place – he’s pretty much useless to me otherwise. But the Eevee evolutions are quite versatile, and I only ever had Espeon on the Gold Version Gameboy cartridge. It’s going to be a bit of a time-consuming process, from breeding to leveling each of them up. But it’s already progressing much faster in this DS remake than in the original. Frankly, I’ll probably go for Espeon next, due to the fact that it takes the longest, what with the happiness factor and all, and I do not yet have any of the evolution stones in my bag (though my brother evolved his into Vaporeon and cued me in as to where I can get a water stone).

My time in the Safari Zone has yielded great results. While the capture process is a bit unusual, I’ve only had a few that I’ve found to be extra-tricky catches. There have been a number of first-gen members that I’m shifting from my party to Bill’s PC, including Magmar, Rhyhorn, and Sandshrew. I’ve also added Misdreavus and Haunter to my party (the latter was a Safari Zone catch, since the moves my Gastly knew were a huge limiting factor with regards to allowing him to level up). I’ve also grown quite attached to my new Poliwag, who is my primary water-type at present, and is nearing evolution to Poliwhirl (and from there he will be evolved into Poliwrath – I’ll have none of that Politoed nonsense).

My core party members are leveling up at a steady rate. Quilava, Umbreon, and Flaffy are all gaining experience slowly but surely, while Magnemite is racking it up from all the Tentacools and Tentacruels on the way to Cianwood Island. It won’t be long before I have a Magneton as one of my core party members. My Geodude is now a Graveler, the ugliest of its three evolutionary stages. Unfortunately, Furret hasn’t been receiving much attention lately – I may rely on him for this weekend’s bug catching tournament just to bring him up to speed with his travelling companions.

As for the gyms, I’m sort of at an impasse right now. Jasmine only has three steel-types at her disposal, but Steelix is kicks my butt. It doesn’t help that Quilava is really my only fire-type capable of dealing any real damage to it. I may have to set aside some time to level up both Magmar and Vulpix in order to take her down. I did spend a bit of time messing around in the Pokéathalon, though. It’s basically a bunch of touch screen-based minigames, and while they aren’t key to the gameplay or story, they are enjoyable enough. I can’t see myself spending a ton of time there, though.